Hi Stephen!

[ ... ] If you are going to start training this kind of thing is should be at the very least on a subscription basis. I for one do not want to fund the education of the entire ripe community. I feel this is wrong, it is not part of our service agreement which is what we pay for, much the same as the test traffic white elephant we funded for years.

I am fully aware that some organisations now and then go through phases where any and all expenses are more tightly checked than in the past ;-) While the Annual Activity Plan issue has already been taken care of, there is another aspect which cannot (for the benfit of those who joined the community at a later date or who didn't follow the project in detail) be left standing without a comment: your "white elefant" claim, implying that the community funds a pet project for a minority: I have just today approved payment for the TTM Service invoice for ACOnet's testbox, amounting to 6K+ EUR. We have actually _bought_ the hardware, and we pay an _annual service_ fee. So it definitely IS a self-sufficient, _subscription based_ service offered by the NCC! Best regards, _________________________________:_____________________________________ Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber@CC.UniVie.ac.at UniVie Computer Center - ACOnet : Tel: +43 1 4277 - 140 33 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4277 - 9 140 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : RIPE-DB: WW144, PGP keyID 0xF0ACB369 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~