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
the Executive Board;" to "the adoption of
the draft Activity Plan and draft budget after a presentation by
the Executive 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/
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