Hello all,

The following is my observations on charging scheme changes and my proposed solution.
TLDR I propose a pay-per-service fee structure as opposed to a pay-per-resource one.

First of all let me just say that the charging scheme does not need to be "fair", all it needs is to be aproved by the majority of the voting members.
Second of all, members will once again overwhelmingly oppose any charging scheme that will drasticaly increase their costs and any "per resource" charging scheme will definitely do that for some older LIRs.
Third of all there is requirement for the membership fees to cover estimated expenses in their current form, RIPE can chose to drastically cut expenses.
RIPE, as most other large organisations tend to do, seems to have outgrown its initial scope and is now more interested in preserving itself than in serving its purpose.
Given these personal observations and my opinion on them I would propose the following "solution"
Develop a "pey-per-service" charging scheme that would more or less contain the following:
- base services related to RIPEs main purpose as a RIR (these should be equal to the 2024 membership fees)
- a base service fee for having a registered LIR (that grants access to te LIR portal and includes access to the mailing lists, etc...)
- a base service fee for access to the RIPE database and related services (this is the original purpose of RIPE, administration of internet resources)
- a base service fee for access to the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI)
- a base service fee for any additional resource allocation or resource transfer between members
- optional services (this can be "priced" based on allocated budget, meaning that a side project that has a larger budget would have a larger associated fee)
- an optional individual service fee for each of RIPEs other services such as training, RIPE atlas, analisys, statistics, in person meetings, events and whatever else RIPE as an organisation wants to do but is not part of it's core function as a RIR
Any difference between 2025 income and 2025 expenses should be covered from RIPEs reserve funds (I do remember voting each year to redistribute leftover income to the reserve funds)
For 2026 and on any optional service stat can cover its operating budget from the optional fee should be continued as it is clearly providing value to those that choose to pay for it.
Any optional service that clearly cannot be funded from its associated optional fee (i'e' the collected revenue from the associated optional fee is much lower than the required operating budget) should be cut.
Each further side project should be proposed for discussion, have an estimated operating budget determined in advance and included as an optional fee in the charging scheme for the following year.
If the estimated budget is covered, than the project can be implemented, otherwise the optional fee is returned to the members that chose to pay it.

Now, members may correctly say that this charging scheme does nothing to address IPv4 scarcity, this is intentional. IPv6 adoption is in my opinion the correct way of dealing with that.
Other members may say that my proposed structure is unfair to LIRs that do not manage many IPv4 resources, though in my opinion that is not the case, that is also irrelevant as I have previously stated that the charging scheme has no need to be fair, only functional and accepted by the majority of voting members.
I do not believe that the cost associated to actually managing existing individual resources for RIPE as an organisation is drastically different between LIRs based on the existing resources, except maybe the actual database size that the associated objects use. Members are the ones that manage the day to day database changes for those resources.

TLDR pay for what you use or want to use, not for all the things that RIPE staff want to do that probably very few members even asked for. A lot of things may be nice to have for free, but when time comes to pay for them turn out to not be worth the price.
Remember that by their very existence RIRs have an inherent monopoly on internet resources, there is no fail state for any such organisation at its core function. However it is OK and if I may say so even desirable for any nonessential projects or endeavours these organisations may embark on to be able to fail should they prove unsustainable.

To all that manage to read all of this, congratz, you are individuals of great patience :)
Mediasat
Doru Serdin
Network Manager
Office: +4 031 82 52 657
E-mail: doru.serdin@mediasat.ro

www.mediasat.ro

www.alonia.ro

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On 15.04.2024 11:52 AM, sdy@a-n-t.ru wrote:
If you pay more tax have you more rights?


On 15/04/2024 09:22, Michel Lanners wrote:

Because RIPE is a MEMBERSHIP organisation. It’s not a commercial

company selling something.

If I’m asked to pay more I also want more voting rights. Consequence:

the few big ones will dominate and steer RIPE in the direction THEY
want. I don’t think that’s in the interest of those who yell at the
unfair membership rate.

RIPE is fair because every member has the same right and the same one

vote.

No, you're not getting more voting rights by paying more.
It is common practice in membership orgs to charge members according to

their category or size, and it's still 1 member = 1 vote.


Sebastien Brossier

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