On 18/06/2026 14:03:02, "Hans Petter Holen" <hph@ripe.net> wrote:
The Executive Board Chair stated the Board’s recommendation in his mail to members, and the Board stated its recommendation during its presentation at the General Meeting. No communications from the RIPE NCC, other than these recommendations from the Board, saw an effort to influence the member vote.
I did not discern that difference when reading this -
From "Ondřej Filip" <exec-board-announce@ripe.net> To ncc-announce@ripe.net Date 21/04/2026 08:17:31 Subject [ncc-announce] [GM] RIPE NCC Charging Scheme Options <snip> The Board recommends that members vote for Option B - Category Model at the upcoming GM. This model implements many of the principles from the Charging Scheme Task Force and would allow the other principles to be introduced gradually in the coming years. This category model would see fees reduced for approximately 75% of LIR accounts. Introducing possible new separate fees in line with task force principles could potentially increase the income for the RIPE NCC while keeping the income derived from the category fees neutral over time.
I read that as RIPE wanted B, that it is just the board saying it does not mark it any less an organisational desire. Perhaps in these matter all of RIPE should be neutral, after all the budget is the same so it is purely a members choice no advocacy needed. Particularly this time when it is a re run of a previous attempt with the main difference being the 75% of LIR getting a reduction as emphasised above. This could be read as "RIPE wants categories, we are giving 75% a reduction to ensure it wins" If you then read the analysis closing - "Would the result change if we asked again? Would the membership change their mind in the upcoming years? Are we going to keep receiving requests for a category model? And will any of this matter once everyone has deployed IPv6? ;)" it does seem like the org wants categories "wtf do we have to do to make this happen?" so no surprise people are raising it. The v6 part has been answered many time already - we go back to Option A because everyone has roughly equal allocations so pointless doing categories until then. Another reason people didn't vote for it may be the undefined new fees mentioned. People have said they don't want the budget to keep increasing and using new fees to do that rather than increase categories is still an increase. Everyone would be wondering if they would be paying disproportionately more, just as some are now with the new resource fees, to keep the main fees down. Another may be there is no promise we would always be offered Option A in future votes if we decided to give categories a go and later changed our minds. brandon