...

3. What other funding does RIPE or RIPE-NCC recieve, other than membership fees (with respect to the answer to the preceeding questions)

None.

Correction to that: The subscribers to the Test Traffic Project add to the RIPE NCC income. Also the RIPE meeting fees. And of course interest etc. Sorry about that. I meant to say that the RIPE NCC is funded by those using it's services. cheers, Axel

On Wed, Dec 04, 2002 at 10:22:01AM -0000, Neil J. McRae wrote: Hi Neil,

I suggest that this is one of the things that changes. These meetings should be self financing.

We have to be careful here. Suppose the calculations re: self-financing are done on the basis of previous numbers attending meetings. Then the price to attend the meeting would naturally rise. This will result in a drop-off in numbers attending, which will mean the price rises again, etc. Much better to do a phased introduction of this, if it's to be done. Personally speaking I'm in favour of meeting attendance being as cheap as possible "for the little guy" but I can understand the rationale behind not desiring subvention of one class of attendees (or non-attendees) by another. Niall -- Enigma Consulting Limited: Security, UNIX and telecommunications consultants. Address: Floor 2, 45 Dawson Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. 802.11 deployment in Dublin: http://www.enigma.ie/wardrive/

On Wed, Dec 04, 2002 at 10:22:01AM -0000, Neil J. McRae wrote:

Axel,

...

The membership fee is paid by the RIPE NCC members. It funds the activities of the RIPE NCC, see http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ap2003.html This covers support for RIPE meetings. RIPE meetings are not fully self financing, f.i. staff support is not "charged to" RIPE.

I suggest that this is one of the things that changes. These meetings should be self financing.

Would you care explain why? We have had this discussion more than once before. The reason that membership fees are used to support RIPE and thus also support a part of RIPE meetings is that the membership at large benefits from the meetings. RIPE Meetings are neither conferences nor training seminars. They are working meetings providing the open forum that the RIPE NCC needs for developing its policies and directing its work. RIPE needs to keep working for the RIPE NCC to keep working. The established principle is that the attendance fee pays for the direct meeting costs such as the venue and lunches. The staff resources supporting RIPE, and also the meetings, are covered by the membership fees. This works well as the direct costs largely scale by the number of attenders and the staff costs are much more constant. Is there a reason to change this? Daniel

Hi, On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 09:09:37AM -0000, Neil J. McRae wrote:

I'm not arguing that the RIPE and the RIPE NCC do good work, I'm arguing for more accountability. The RIPE NCC meeting for example needs at most to be two days IMO and for most members attending a two day meeting to cover the specific RIPE NCC functions is far more justifiable than a 5 day meeting.

I agree that 5 days is too much - but 2 days isn't sufficient either. For me, one of the most important aspects of the meetings is "meet people face-to-face" - and this needs time. If you don't count the EOF, the meeting actually only has 3 days (half tuesday, full wednesday+thursday, half friday)... Gert Doering -- NetMaster -- Total number of prefixes smaller than registry allocations: 54136 (50279) SpaceNet AG Mail: netmaster@Space.Net Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Tel : +49-89-32356-0 80807 Muenchen Fax : +49-89-32356-299

Hello, Quote from (lost in the requote): } > This covers support for RIPE meetings. } > RIPE meetings are not fully self financing, } > f.i. staff support is not "charged to" RIPE. Quote from "Neil J. McRae": } I suggest that this is one of the things that } changes. These meetings should be self financing. I'm not yet sure that this would be a good idea. If flying to RIPE meetings is already a bit too expensive for many of the smaller LIRs, I don't think we'll see much of them anymore if there is going to be an entrance fee as well. Furthermore, if the AGM will be a part of one RIPE meeting per year, wouldn't this create a plutocracy, i.e. rule by those that can afford to pay a bit more? -- Aleksi Suhonen

On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, Aleksi Suhonen wrote:

If flying to RIPE meetings is already a bit too expensive for many of the smaller LIRs, I don't think we'll see much of them anymore if there is going to be an entrance fee as well.

Furthermore, if the AGM will be a part of one RIPE meeting per year, wouldn't this create a plutocracy, i.e. rule by those that can afford to pay a bit more?

urm, no. I am interpreting the suggestions for the two to be held together as: The RIPE NCC AGM should be held immediately before or after the RIPE Meeting, utilising the same venue[1] and support infrastructure[2]. and that: The existing RIPE Meeting registration fee should not include the RIPE NCC AGM. ( so if you're just attending the RIPE NCC AGM, you are not paying the RIPE Meeting registration fee. ) For people that attend both the RIPE Meeting and RIPE NCC AGM, this removes one trip per year, at the cost of a slightly longer stay in Amsterdam. For people that attend only one or the other, this does not change their flight or registration requirements. Kind regards, -- Bruce Campbell RIPE Systems/Network Engineer NCC www.ripe.net - PGP562C8B1B Operations/Security [1] Obviously, this would tie the given RIPE Meeting to Amsterdam. [2] Logistically, a long meeting is easier for the NCC to support, than multiple small meetings.

At 16:35 05/12/2002 +0000, Peter Galbavy wrote:

...

For people that attend both the RIPE Meeting and RIPE NCC AGM, this removes one trip per year, at the cost of a slightly longer stay in Amsterdam. For people that attend only one or the other, this does not change their flight or registration requirements.

And therefore as a consequence puts more people near the AGM so that participation by members is wider... hooray. Win/win.

Exactly. I say we should at least try it. If only 10 members turn up to the AGM when it is held on the Friday after the RIPE meeting, then we can say "ooops, we were wrong". But as ARIN found out last month with NANOG, co-locating meetings really does help the attendance. And everyone wins. :-) May I propose to the board (who hopefully are all on this mailing list) that they suggest combining the RIPE meeting with the RIPE NCC AGM at the September 2003 event? That only means moving the AGM date forward by a month, so hopefully doesn't involve the NCC Secretariat in too much more stress in preparing for the AGM. (And which might make the format of Monday: EOF, Tuesday/Wednesday: WG meetings, Thursday: Open Meeting, Friday: NCC AGM?) philip --

Please do keep in mind that the AMS-IX has their tech-meetings during RIPE-meetings in Amsterdam as well (on fridays). Scheduling AGM's at the same time as AMS-IX meeetings is could be undesirable.

and, of course, the ams-ix meeting is more important to the entire ripe community and should have scheduling priority? randy

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Randy Bush wrote: Hi,

...

Please do keep in mind that the AMS-IX has their tech-meetings during RIPE-meetings in Amsterdam as well (on fridays). Scheduling AGM's at the same time as AMS-IX meeetings is could be undesirable.

and, of course, the ams-ix meeting is more important to the entire ripe community and should have scheduling priority?

Well you can have it your way. Let me rephrase then: Scheduling AMS-IX meetings AGM's at the same time as AGM's could be undesirable. All I'm trying to point out is that we don't want a conflict in schedulings so people would be forced to choose. I understand that for you the AMS-IX is of no importance, but for a number of members in the RIPE region, it is. -- Sabri Berisha www.cluecentral.net "I route, therefore you are"

Scheduling AMS-IX meetings AGM's at the same time as AGM's could be undesirable.

yup

I understand that for you the AMS-IX is of no importance

your understanding is not correct. i, like most folk, just have my priorities. randy