Neill, all, First of all I must say that I like the fact that the new RIPE NCC Services Working Group obviously is taking off :-) With regard to the repeatedly stated opinion that the RIPE NCC management, and the RIPE NCC Executive Board are unaware of the members' opinions, and needs, I am convinced that those members of the community who have followed the events, presentations and planning discussions of the last year (from the conduct of the membership survey 2003, the move of the General Meeting to the Friday of the RIPE Meeting, and through to the proposal of the Activity Plan and other documents in preparation of that General Meeting), know full well that we are very aware of these concerns, and that actions continue to be proposed, and are taken where approved, to adjust activities to the expressed need of RIPE NCC members and stakeholders. The existence of this Working Group and mailing list in itself is just one minor outcome. The point of "Just Registration Service" is moot. As we all now, the industry has changed. Well, actually the running of a geeks' network instead of the politically correct technology has *become* the industry before that. And thus has attracted all sorts of people, politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats, the lot. We cannot go back to the old days of just registering numbers. The risk is high that one day we would awake to the ITU doing Internet Governance. "Please see your local MP to effect a change in IP allocation policy, to be discussed at the next plenipotentiary of the ITU." We need to do more, to establish the RIPE NCC in the minds of politicians, journalists, "the public" as a trustworthy place you can turn to to gain insight in the operations of the Internet. About the RIPE meetings: They are crucially important to the functioning of the RIPE NCC, and of industry self regulation. Yes, they should be self supporting, but they aren't fully. Can we raise the meeting fees? Of course. But we need to balance this very carefully, as we cannot run the risk of eating into attendance numbers too much. regards, Axel
Alex,
With regard to the repeatedly stated opinion that the RIPE NCC management, and the RIPE NCC Executive Board are unaware of the members' opinions, and needs, I am convinced that those members of the community who have followed the events, presentations and planning discussions of the last year (from the conduct of the membership survey 2003, the move of the General Meeting to the Friday of the RIPE Meeting, and through to the proposal of the Activity Plan and other documents in preparation of that General Meeting), know full well that we are very aware of these concerns, and that actions continue to be proposed, and are taken where approved, to adjust activities to the expressed need of RIPE NCC members and stakeholders.
The existence of this Working Group and mailing list in itself is just one minor outcome.
You need to move faster then as the impression you give is that you are dragging your feet, and as they say where I come from - The Natives are Restless.
The point of "Just Registration Service" is moot.
Until you demonstrate this point in my view you are talking complete and utter nonsense.
As we all now, the industry has changed. Well, actually the running of a geeks' network instead of the politically correct technology has *become* the industry before that. And thus has attracted all sorts of people, politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats, the lot.
Anyone who believes that these people have only just become involved in this industry are very short-sighted. These people +have+ always been involved in one way or another. Is it not a sign of our industries maturity that some involvement has changed - absolutely and personally speaking thats a good thing in the most part.
We cannot go back to the old days of just registering numbers. The risk is high that one day we would awake to the ITU doing Internet Governance. "Please see your local MP to effect a change in IP allocation policy, to be discussed at the next plenipotentiary of the ITU."
And correctly the RIPE NCC and other organisation was setup to deal with issues like this. But the RIPE NCC was not setup to deal with spam or other "insert random activity here".
We need to do more, to establish the RIPE NCC in the minds of politicians, journalists, "the public" as a trustworthy place you can turn to to gain insight in the operations of the Internet.
I'm not sure I agree and I think the RIPE NCC needs to do more to establish itself with its members first Alex! However, If this is the direction the NCC is heading in, then the RIPE NCC needs more thinking around its organisation and how it structures to ensure that this "objective" is met, because at the moment, frankly, its a million miles away from where it needs to be to be successful in those areas. Even more particularly so, in the case that we have a situation where the level of member involvement is a serious problem, you said the work trustworthy? How can you be trustworthy when the level of member interest is highly questionable? When you sign up members for one thing and do another?! Doesn't sound too trusting to me. I'm not against a number of the RIPE's activities, in fact some of the work that has been done has been great, but it needs to have strong foundations and support from the RIPE NCC members and stakeholders and at the moment that isn't the case. I'd hazard a guess that a vast majority of the members signed up so they can register IP addresses, AS numbers and get reverse DNS and if all the other stuff stopped tomorrow that they wouldn't even notice. In my view this is the critical part of the problem. The purpose of the RIPE NCC are the registration services which is what we signed up for. There are a several other organisations that have been setup working with the public and the media to lobby specific points and actions. Yes the RIPE NCC needs to be involved but I do not believe for one moment it needs to be the leading in these activities and these activlties should be focused around the registration and internet numbering areas noted above.
About the RIPE meetings: They are crucially important to the functioning of the RIPE NCC, and of industry self regulation. Yes, they should be self supporting, but they aren't fully. Can we raise the meeting fees? Of course. But we need to balance this very carefully, as we cannot run the risk of eating into attendance numbers too much.
Alex, I agree the RIPE meeting is important, but the length of the meeting and the amount of actual work that comes out of the meeting is highly questionable. Rather than raise meeting fees, look to shorten the meeting so that it is more cost effective and has more focus on getting some work done. The general meeting of the RIPE NCC should be part of the RIPE meeting also. I hear time and time again from alot of people that if the RIPE meeting was more focused and shorter then they would attend it more often. I'd be interested to hear what plans you have to modernise the meetings. Regards, Neil.
Neil, all,
You need to move faster then as the impression you give is that you are dragging your feet, and as they say where I come from - The Natives are Restless.
I have heard comments to the contrary. That's not really the point though.
Anyone who believes that these people have only just become involved in this industry are very short-sighted. These people +have+ always been involved in one way or another. Is it not a sign of our industries maturity that some involvement has changed - absolutely and personally speaking thats a good thing in the most part.
I'm not saying that. The point is that the Internet is seen as being of economic importance. Including the distribution of addresses. People who have not known about us 15 years ago, and have ignored us 10 years ago, are becoming interested to run this activities for themselves. On a national level, on a governmental basis.
And correctly the RIPE NCC and other organisation was setup to deal with issues like this. But the RIPE NCC was not setup to deal with spam or other "insert random activity here".
Absolutely agree.
We need to do more, to establish the RIPE NCC in the minds of politicians, journalists, "the public" as a trustworthy place you can turn to to gain insight in the operations of the Internet.
I'm not sure I agree and I think the RIPE NCC needs to do more to establish itself with its members first Alex!
That's what we hear, and what we are working towards.
I'm not against a number of the RIPE's activities, in fact some of the work that has been done has been great, but it needs to have strong foundations and support from the RIPE NCC members and stakeholders and at the moment that isn't the case.
I fully agree with you, our activities need to be supported by our members. We need to propose clearly, in case we would start something new, with a clear timeline, budget, *benefit for the members*.
I'd hazard a guess that a vast majority of the members signed up so they can register IP addresses, AS numbers and get reverse DNS and if all the other stuff stopped tomorrow that they wouldn't even notice. In my view this is the critical part of the problem.
Indeed. My argument is that "the other stuff" is not seen as important, but it actually is essential to keep the "core activities" in the members' hands.
There are a several other organisations that have been setup working with the public and the media to lobby specific points and actions. Yes the RIPE NCC needs to be involved but I do not believe for one moment it needs to be the leading in these activities and these activlties should be focused around the registration and internet numbering areas noted above.
Yes, this is more or less what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about becoming a lobbying organisation. I'm talking about making our (the community's, the members', the NCC's) knowledge available in a much more focused, targetted way. We need to make trusted data available, and be known for that. Scarcity of IPv4 addresses is just one very obvious, self-perpetuating myth that needs to be killed.
The general meeting of the RIPE NCC should be part of the RIPE meeting also.
Building on your wishes, this will happen this time around.
I hear time and time again from alot of people that if the RIPE meeting was more focused and shorter then they would attend it more often.
I heard the same. Is it time then to request space on the agenda to make a proposal and discuss it? I'm sure Rob would be accommodating.
I'd be interested to hear what plans you have to modernise the meetings.
The RIPE NCC is here (besides others) to organise the RIPE meetings according to the community consensus. If the outcome of that discussion is to have a three day meeting, we can organise it that way. cheers, Axel
Axel, On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 04:42:55PM +0200, Axel Pawlik wrote:
Scarcity of IPv4 addresses is just one very obvious, self-perpetuating myth that needs to be killed.
I am afraid that not all your membership agrees with this. The very fact that one has to become member of an organization with significant fees, that one has to go to training courses in order to understand how to get addressess and that one has to understand all kind of policies before one gets the actual ipv4 addresses that one needs means that they are in fact a scarce resource.
From the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary:
scarce adjective not easy to find or obtain: Food and clean water were becoming scarce. scarce resources ipv4 addresses certainly qualify as 'not easy to obtain'. One has to do considerable effort to get some and even then, one hardly ever gets the amount that one would really like to have. Businesses and isps would be able to cut a lot of cost if they could get larger allocations, waste more space and be more relaxed in their ipv4 address inventory management. We cannot afford to do that because the resource that you are managing is indeed a scarce resource. The only reason that the RIPE NCC is needed is exactly for the reason that ipv4 addresses are a scarce resource. There might be enough for them for the near future if we keep rationing the distibution as we do now but we would certainly run out rather quickly if your organization would just give away ipv4 addresses to the people/organizations that ask for them. As I understand it, your core business is the management of a scarce resource and I don't see any reason why you should spend time killing a 'self-perpetuating myth' that is not a myth at all. David K. ---
On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, David Kessens wrote:
The only reason that the RIPE NCC is needed is exactly for the reason that ipv4 addresses are a scarce resource. There might be enough for
so then, why did I/IUCC have to rejoin RIPE in order to get an IPv6 /32? IUCC, as an NREN, hasn't had a need for IPv4 space since we got our /16s in the 1980s. We handed off our membership to ISOC-IL a number of years ago to manage the ASN and IPv4 space. Only once we needed an IPv6 /32 did we find out we had to rejoin RIPE NCC and pay membership fees. If Ipv6 isn't a scarce resource, then RIPE NCC shouldn't be managing it, according to your logic. We will never ask for IPv4 space or an ASN (we are happy with AS378) but will continue to pay our nKeuros/yr just to maintain our IPv6 /32. -Hank
them for the near future if we keep rationing the distibution as we do now but we would certainly run out rather quickly if your organization would just give away ipv4 addresses to the people/organizations that ask for them.
As I understand it, your core business is the management of a scarce resource and I don't see any reason why you should spend time killing a 'self-perpetuating myth' that is not a myth at all.
David K. ---
Hank Nussbacher
Hank, On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 11:05:42PM +0300, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, David Kessens wrote:
The only reason that the RIPE NCC is needed is exactly for the reason that ipv4 addresses are a scarce resource. There might be enough for
so then, why did I/IUCC have to rejoin RIPE in order to get an IPv6 /32? IUCC, as an NREN, hasn't had a need for IPv4 space since we got our /16s in the 1980s. We handed off our membership to ISOC-IL a number of years ago to manage the ASN and IPv4 space. Only once we needed an IPv6 /32 did we find out we had to rejoin RIPE NCC and pay membership fees. If Ipv6 isn't a scarce resource, then RIPE NCC shouldn't be managing it, according to your logic.
But if the members agree that it is a useful service to provide to it's membership it seems perfectly fine for them to provide this service. We will need somebody to keep track of who is using what regarding ipv6 addresses. Since the RIPE NCC already has systems for doing just that in ipv4, it seems that it is not a bad synergy with their existing services. What we don't need is the same restrictive policies as with ipv4 and as a result the fees, indirect costs and other barriers for getting ipv6 addresses should be considerable lower than for ipv4 addresses (which is indeed the case, though some might argue that the barrier is not low enough yet). And yes, I don't think that people who want just ipv4 addresses need to pay for people who want ipv6 addresses. Luckily enough, interactions with the registry for ipv6 addresses indeed seem to have been reduced to filling out a fairly simple application only one time. I haven't heard anybody yet who needed to come back for more addresses so the cost of providing ipv6 services should indeed actually be quite a bit lower and be more of the nature of an AS# request.
We will never ask for IPv4 space or an ASN (we are happy with AS378) but will continue to pay our nKeuros/yr just to maintain our IPv6 /32. -Hank
There is organizations out there who have enough addresses or are not growing and I don't see much reason why they would need to pay high maintenance/yearly fees each year for the right on a small entry in the RIPE database. If they want to, it's fine with me but I don't think they should be required to pay (a lot) more than what they receive in services (and I do realize that an entry in the database is really not as cheap as one would think since there is serious costs involved with running a high quality database service - ip registries simply don't have the volume advantages as dns registrars/registries have). David K. ---
David Kessens wrote:
But if the members agree that it is a useful service to provide to it's membership it seems perfectly fine for them to provide this service.
We will need somebody to keep track of who is using what regarding ipv6 addresses. Since the RIPE NCC already has systems for doing just that in ipv4, it seems that it is not a bad synergy with their existing services.
Please stop playing political word games. You first justify your statement by saying "A is neccessary" then when A is shown to be based on questionable data, you say, "well now that we have done A anyway, lets do B since we can". Next I expect your assertion "B" to be doubted, and you will start on topic "C". Back to the original point, managing (potentially) scarce resources is, to me, the primary role of RIPE. Everything else is fluff and - basically - self-agrandisment (sp?). Peter
You are right, David, as we all know. IPv4 indeed is a scarce resource. The myth that we need to combat is that IPv4 address space is so scarce, that running out is imminent. The other, related myth, is that some areas of the globe have de facto run out, and cannot get new space, due to unfair allocation practices. We all know that this is not the case. This knowledge must be spread. I see one of the tasks of the RIPE NCC in facilitating this. cheers, Axel
On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 03:17:27PM +0100, Neil J. McRae wrote: [...]
I'm not against a number of the RIPE's activities, in fact some of the work that has been done has been great, but it needs to have strong foundations and support from the RIPE NCC members and stakeholders and at the moment that isn't the case.
Most of the tasks RIPE is taking up are things that *are* of relevance, but most members do not notice the relevance for a few years *after* 8-) E.g. the k-root multisite experiment or the anti-spam wg (which lagged, but was and is very important).
I'd hazard a guess that a vast majority of the members signed up so they can register IP addresses, AS numbers and get reverse DNS and if all the other stuff stopped tomorrow that they wouldn't even notice.
Yes, they would not notice for a few years and then would wake up and say "We *had* this and killed it, my, now, that we need it".
The purpose of the RIPE NCC are the registration services which is what we signed up for.
The purpose extends to other important areas, and they need to be covered in an open manner. I know other ways this can be covered (DE-NIC, ECO) and I do not prefer those ways. It was suggested: "If you need lobbying, start another group". I've done that already (www.ispeg.de, very german-centric), but this does not keep me from wanting RIPE being the platform for advanced topics it currently is.
There are a several other organisations that have been setup working with the public and the media to lobby specific points and actions.
Yes, and most/all of them failed for critical mass, skills, person power, influence, you name it.
About the RIPE meetings: They are crucially important to the functioning of the RIPE NCC, and of industry self regulation. Yes, they should be self supporting, but they aren't fully. Can we raise the meeting fees?
How much is required to cover all the costs ? -- MfG/Best regards, Kurt Jaeger 17 years to go ! LF.net GmbH fon +49 711 90074-23 pi@LF.net Ruppmannstr. 27 fax +49 711 90074-33 D-70565 Stuttgart mob +49 171 3101372
participants (6)
-
Axel Pawlik -
David Kessens -
Hank Nussbacher -
Kurt Jaeger -
Neil J. McRae -
Peter Galbavy