On 18 Jan 2024, at 6:46, Hank Nussbacher wrote:

Thanks, Hank, for nudging me. Watching John's keynote has been on my TODO list
since Randy Bush encouraged people to look at it in his RIPE87 presentation
"The RIR Social Contract".

John's keynote is both excellent and relevant.

John takes the concept of "respective roles" from the Tunis Agenda,
and points out that regulation and compulsion fall within the role of
government. He cites examples of engagement with government in other
industries, where technical professionals develop codes and norms,
which remain voluntary best practices until they are referenced by
and mandated in legislation or regulation. He presents this model
as the way ahead for engagement between the technical professionals
of the Internet ("us", if I may put it like that), and the various
agencies of Government.

John also cites a couple of the norms we have already, BCP38 and
MANRS, as examples of useful and relevant work which this technical
community has already done. He urges us (see above) to engage with
government, communicating how norms we have already developed might
be relevant to problems which they need to address, and taking
account of their goals in areas where further technical norms may
be needed.

It's significant for me that John is not urging us to expect
the RIPE NCC, or other RIRs, either to take on a policing role
or to make their administrative processes more onerous, but
rather to engage with government to understand their goals,
and to continue developing and promoting technically sound
good practices.

As Hank says, unless you've done so already,

Best regards,

Niall O'Reilly
RIPE Vice-Chair