Moving further forward on the action list I would like to initiate this small project: produce documentation on how we develop addressing policy in the RIPE region. Tentative plan: 11/1 Kick off 24/1 Close of discussion on list 31/1 Editorial group posts draft to the list 21/2 Week of RIPE 35 thus aggressive, this plan does provide some slack to ensure deliverables before the RIPE meeting. Note that the task this time is to document the current process, not suggest a new better or improved process. I believe it is important for everybody involved, or remotely interested in, how addressing policy in the RIPE is developed to have a common understanding on how the current process works BEFORE we start discussing how to improve the process if at all needed. Background. ========== The RIPE working group named lir-wg, and abbreviation for Local Internet Registry Working Group, is the open forum where addressing policy in the RIPE area as been developed. Great care has been taken by the community, the previous chair of this working group , and the chair of RIPE in particular, to keep this an open forum. It is worth being particularly clear on the fact that, even though the RIPE NCC finances and operations are eventually controlled by the RIPE NCC Association membership, i.e. those who buy services from the RIPE NCC, particular care has been taken over time to make sure that the forum for setting the addressing policies RIPE NCC operates under, is NOT restricted to its membership. Historicaly we have initiated changes to policy in several different ways: - Changes have been initiated from the RIPE NCC - Individuals have initiated Changes - Other fora like IETF have initiated Changes Developing documentation of new policy has likewise been carried out in a number of slightly different ways, the two most important being: - The major rewrite that resulted in RIPE 185 European Internet Registry Policies and Procedures was managed by an editorial group consisting on members of the working group and RIPE NCC staff. The policy was put in writing by the RIPE NCC staff acting as a secretary of the group. - The IPv6 policy document RIPE 196 was developed jointly by the regional registries in close co-operation with the IP v6 working group. The working groups conduct their work not only at open meetings at the open RIPE meetings where anybody can Common to all of this is that the final policy documents are made public not only to the working group but also presented to the RIPE plenary and published on the RIPE public web site at www.ripe.net. Currently there are no formal ways to adapt new policy at the working groups meeting or at the mailing list. This leaves the chair of the WG with the particular power to suggest to the meeting not to adapt changes and thus initiate further discussion at the list or future meetings. The meeting does have the power to follow such advice or not. In many ways this is similar to the IETF rough consensus, but we need to rely on advice from the RIPE NCC, our common sense and fairness instead of running code. The following people volunteered at the meeting to form a task force to write up this: Aaron Hamilton - Cable & Wireless Sam Critchley - UUNET Tim Dmons - IS Products, UK Barbara Roseman - Frontier globalcenter Hans van der Veer, Lucent tech Gordon Lennox, European Commision Could you reconfirm your availability within the suggested timeframe and interest to me personally and provide me with your preferred email address. Other volunteers are also appreciated! Sincerely, Hans Petter Holen