Am 31.05.25 um 00:09 schrieb Kaj Niemi:
And the fees could be reduced to half by reducing the amount of costs but that’s a topic that nobody wants to discuss, either, but for other reasons. Anyway.
This was brought up, I think, two or three years ago already; decoupling the discussions of "redistributing the operational costs" and "what services are there to be financed by all members at all" – and the later is up solely to the Executive Board to decide upon – isn't the proper way anymore. Sure, given the choice, I'm rather certain a majority of members would reduce the NCC's task down to running the Portal, the DB and directly related duties — and get rid of RIPE Atlas, RIPEstat, K-Root, RPKI, maybe even the RIPE Meetings, if that cuts their member fees. But I think anyway it's time to change the bylaws and have the membership *decide* directly over the amount of services that it wants to continue to finance. Currently, by Article 15, a General Meeting will 'discuss' the draft Activity Plan, but does *decide* about it. There's currently no way for the membership to actively decide on the Activity Plan, as has been made clear by RIPE NCC officials in the past. Members only can decide about the "Charging Scheme […] upon proposal of the Executive Board" – i. e. the way the costs resulting from the Activity Plan they have no vote on are to be distributed – while Members are not allowed to propose a different Charging Scheme to that of the Executive Board (Article 15.4 b). To reduce the amount to finance, one needs to reduce the amount of spending, simple a=b/c math; if you have a given, or declining, c – number of members –, to reduce a – each member's share of the costs – you have to properly decrease b, the amount of money spent due to the Activity Plan. To finish this futile discussions once and for all, to me it's time to change Article 15.4 a from "/a discussion/ of the draft Activity Plan and draft budget after a presentation by theExecutive Board;" to "/the adoption/ of the draft Activity Plan and draft budget after a presentation by theExecutive Board;". Similar change should be considered for 15.4 c. Regards, -kai -- Kai Siering Senior System Engineer Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 70 D-33330 Gütersloh Tel.: +49 (0) 5241 / 74 34 986 Fax: +49 (0) 5241 / 74 34 987 E-Mail:k.siering@team.mail.de Web:https://mail.de/ Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter: Fabian Bock Sitz der Gesellschaft Nordhastedt Handelsregister Pinneberg HRB 8007 PI Steuernummer 18 293 20020