On 21/04/2014 10:50, Tore Anderson wrote:
I believe the easiest way to prevent that from happening would be to explain why the reason why the option exists in the first place. I would have no problem voting in favour of the changing the membership structure if I understood why the option exists, who would use it, how come they wouldn't prefer any of the other options offered by the policy, and so on.
the initial intention in 2007-01 was that PI holders would be able to engage directly with the NCC without going through an intermediate. It immediately became clear that the NCC really oughtn't compete with its members, so they were put in a position that they needed to charge enough to make it clear that this was not happening. To this end, the board proposed that the direct option would be priced at the same level as the LIR membership fee. I wasn't very happy about this decision at the time, but changed my mind afterwards. There are enough LIRs out there that getting a friendly one to act as sponsor shouldn't be difficult. If it turns out that you don't like one, you can quickly and easily shift the resources to another. The same arguments apply to 2012-07. I'm not surprised that they've priced the direct option the same as LIR membership, because that's the point at which they absolutely cannot be accused of competing with their members. No doubt in a couple of years, this option will disappear from the RIPE NCC service list because few people if any are going to avail of it. The sky will not fall. Nick