Using Atlas for commercial services
Hello, happy Atlasers, After reading <https://labs.ripe.net/Members/kranjbar/future-of-ripe-ncc-technical-services> (specially the part about using Atlas to monitor reachability from Nagios), the ToS <https://atlas.ripe.net/service-rules/> and checking the FAQ <https://atlas.ripe.net/about/faq/>, I still have a question: Can I use Atlas as a basis for commercial services? Today, most Atlas uses seem to be for public research, or for "selfish" measurements (checking my network). But I see nothing forbidding people to sell services (monitoring, quality assessment) to other people, based on Atlas. Is it on purpose? [Yes, I have one or two business ideas and I would like to know before I continue developing them.]
Hi, Ripe atlas is sponsored by LIRs and other contributors such as probe hosts and sponsors, I have a feeling that it is not fair to make money selling services of platform which is supported by parties who are not stakeholders of the business. I don't propose to share business with all the sponsoring parties just mention that it is not fair. When you use Atlas to measure your own network's quality and ensure your companies service quality is good enough then well - this is one of purposes of the Atlas especially when you are a host or sponsor. But selling Atlas service which belongs to community and not to one company then it sounds sad. Regards. /Alex Saroyan On 09/04/2013 02:31 PM, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
Hello, happy Atlasers,
After reading <https://labs.ripe.net/Members/kranjbar/future-of-ripe-ncc-technical-services> (specially the part about using Atlas to monitor reachability from Nagios), the ToS <https://atlas.ripe.net/service-rules/> and checking the FAQ <https://atlas.ripe.net/about/faq/>, I still have a question:
Can I use Atlas as a basis for commercial services?
Today, most Atlas uses seem to be for public research, or for "selfish" measurements (checking my network). But I see nothing forbidding people to sell services (monitoring, quality assessment) to other people, based on Atlas. Is it on purpose?
[Yes, I have one or two business ideas and I would like to know before I continue developing them.]
On Wed, Sep 04, 2013 at 03:02:43PM +0400, Alex Saroyan wrote:
companies service quality is good enough then well - this is one of purposes of the Atlas especially when you are a host or sponsor. But
just obeserving that you need credits to execute these measurements and IIUC there are three ways to acquire credits: hosting, sponsoring, and 'obtaining' from another credit holder. Now, if for the latter a market would evolve, that might have interesting consequences, including the 'dredits' becoming assets inthe books. I'd imagine the NCC has spent some cycles on the 'atlas credit economics' already. -Peter
2013-09-04 13:02, Alex Saroyan skrev:
Hi,
Ripe atlas is sponsored by LIRs and other contributors such as probe hosts and sponsors, I have a feeling that it is not fair to make money selling services of platform which is supported by parties who are not stakeholders of the business. I don't propose to share business with all the sponsoring parties just mention that it is not fair.
When you use Atlas to measure your own network's quality and ensure your companies service quality is good enough then well - this is one of purposes of the Atlas especially when you are a host or sponsor. But selling Atlas service which belongs to community and not to one company then it sounds sad.
Hi, As Stephane says, there seems to be something that hinders the use for commercial purposes. But I think nobody got himself a probe for others to make money off. But I could imagine that there is a radio button on my probe page to indicate that "we" (probe owner) agree that you will use this probe for that purpose, and that a certain amount of the revenue goes back to the atlas/ripe/probe-owners. regards, /bengan
Regards. /Alex Saroyan
On 09/04/2013 02:31 PM, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
Hello, happy Atlasers,
After reading <https://labs.ripe.net/Members/kranjbar/future-of-ripe-ncc-technical-services>
(specially the part about using Atlas to monitor reachability from Nagios), the ToS <https://atlas.ripe.net/service-rules/> and checking the FAQ <https://atlas.ripe.net/about/faq/>, I still have a question:
Can I use Atlas as a basis for commercial services?
Today, most Atlas uses seem to be for public research, or for "selfish" measurements (checking my network). But I see nothing forbidding people to sell services (monitoring, quality assessment) to other people, based on Atlas. Is it on purpose?
[Yes, I have one or two business ideas and I would like to know before I continue developing them.]
2013-09-04 13:36, Bengt Gördén skrev:
2013-09-04 13:02, Alex Saroyan skrev:
Hi,
Ripe atlas is sponsored by LIRs and other contributors such as probe hosts and sponsors, I have a feeling that it is not fair to make money selling services of platform which is supported by parties who are not stakeholders of the business. I don't propose to share business with all the sponsoring parties just mention that it is not fair.
When you use Atlas to measure your own network's quality and ensure your companies service quality is good enough then well - this is one of purposes of the Atlas especially when you are a host or sponsor. But selling Atlas service which belongs to community and not to one company then it sounds sad.
Hi,
As Stephane says, there seems to be something ^^^^^^^^^^ s/something/nothing
On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 7:02 PM, Alex Saroyan <alexsaroyan@gmail.com> wrote:
Ripe atlas is sponsored by LIRs and other contributors such as probe hosts and sponsors, I have a feeling that it is not fair to make money selling services of platform which is supported by parties who are not stakeholders of the business. I don't propose to share business with all the sponsoring parties just mention that it is not fair.
It seems to be me that Stephane's model is no different from, eg, Red Hat. Any of the prospective customers can get a probe, rack up credits, and do their stuff for free anyway. As long as it is clear that the payment is for the service addon, not the packets themselves. -- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
On Wed, Sep 04, 2013 at 12:31:10PM +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@nic.fr> wrote a message of 17 lines which said:
Can I use Atlas as a basis for commercial services?
Oh, and, by the way, I understand that Atlas is "best effort", that I cannot sue the RIPE-NCC if it breaks and stops my commercial service, etc.
On 9/4/2013 at 12:31 PM Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: |Hello, happy Atlasers, | |After reading |<https://labs.ripe.net/Members/kranjbar/future-of-ripe-ncc-technical-se rvices> |(specially the part about using Atlas to monitor reachability from |Nagios), the ToS <https://atlas.ripe.net/service-rules/> and checking |the FAQ <https://atlas.ripe.net/about/faq/>, I still have a question: | |Can I use Atlas as a basis for commercial services? | |Today, most Atlas uses seem to be for public research, or for |"selfish" measurements (checking my network). But I see nothing |forbidding people to sell services (monitoring, quality assessment) to |other people, based on Atlas. Is it on purpose? | |[Yes, I have one or two business ideas and I would like to know before |I continue developing them.] ============= I would not want my network hosting the probe to be used for commercial purposes because, among myriad other reasons, I do not have a business connection with my ISP.
On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@nic.fr>wrote:
Can I use Atlas as a basis for commercial services?
I see no reason why not. As long as the use patterns on my probes do not change, I lose nothing, and you are welcome to make money.
Today, most Atlas uses seem to be for public research, or for "selfish" measurements (checking my network). But I see nothing forbidding people to sell services (monitoring, quality assessment) to other people, based on Atlas. Is it on purpose?
I plan to use Atlas for my MSc thesis. I think this is a selfish as you selling measurements to people who want to know when their hosts are down. In any case, you will need credits to run measurements, so you must host probes, which we non-commercial guys can use <evil laugh> -- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
On 2013-09-04 23:19 wrote Sanjeev Gupta:
In any case, you will need credits to run measurements, so you must host probes,
And there is no guarantee you will be given a sufficient number of probes, eh. BR Daniel AJ
One issue I can think of is that some probes are hosted on networks which are subsidized by public money partly on the condition that they not be used for commercial purposes. Of course you can interpret "used for commercial purposes" in more than one way (research projects can have commercial partners), but it is something to keep in mind - actually making a direct profit off of the use of a non-commercial network might be stretching the rules too far. - tg
On 09/05/2013 06:58 PM, Tom Guptill wrote:
One issue I can think of is that some probes are hosted on networks which are subsidized by public money partly on the condition that they not be used for commercial purposes.
slightly related, or perhaps more generally, folks might object to the probe they stick in their network being used commercially, for several reasons (principle, contracts, etc). I don't think I would, but I don't think it is what people signed up for :)
Of course you can interpret "used for commercial purposes" in more than one way (research projects can have commercial partners), but it is something to keep in mind - actually making a direct profit off of the use of a non-commercial network might be stretching the rules too far.
Conceivably this could be a hosting option for your probe ([] this probe may be used for commercial services), but then again, that could open up a can of worms as well (why make the distinction solely at commercial/noncommercial, and indeed, what is commercial in the first place). Jelte
On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 4:19 AM, Sanjeev Gupta <ghane0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@nic.fr> wrote:
Can I use Atlas as a basis for commercial services?
I see no reason why not. As long as the use patterns on my probes do not change, I lose nothing, and you are welcome to make money.
Exactly my point. Unless the probes don't consume significantly more resources it's there to help connectivity. If someone wants to provide a service then s/he must constantly generate credits which results more probes to be available for me. It causes me no harm if someone earns money while providing me resources. However as others mentioned it strongly requires a well balanced credit system to prevent large volume users (be they commercial or not) to consume too much resource, and to prevent small individual probe owners from starving by not being able to provide enough credits to be able to make their own measurements. Basically that's the same as open source / open content economy: commercial insterests have to provide resources to the others in exchange of their (smaller) resources. (Probably there should be some requirement to assure topologically well distributed probes from mass users.) g
On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Peter Gervai <grinapo+ripeatlas@gmail.com>wrote:
Exactly my point. Unless the probes don't consume significantly more resources it's there to help connectivity. If someone wants to provide a service then s/he must constantly generate credits which results more probes to be available for me. It causes me no harm if someone earns money while providing me resources.
And while Stephane makes money, the system is being strengthened, to my advantage. I assume the new commercial offering will need, and hence place, probes in Africa as well, which I will use, for free!
However as others mentioned it strongly requires a well balanced credit system to prevent large volume users (be they commercial or not) to consume too much resource, and to prevent small individual probe owners from starving by not being able to provide enough credits to be able to make their own measurements.
The number of credits I get is not affected by what Stephane uses, right? And Stephane had better create as many credits as are required by customers. So it in the commercial entities self-interest to go sponsor more probes, and keep them online.
Basically that's the same as open source / open content economy: commercial insterests have to provide resources to the others in exchange of their (smaller) resources. (Probably there should be some requirement to assure topologically well distributed probes from mass users.)
The first service to use Atlas probably will not be well balanced, but the next few can. After all, there is nothing to stop me stealing^Wbeing inspired by the current proposal, and implementing it for Asia. Adam Smith was right, the baker and the butcher feed me by being selfish. -- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
On Thu, Sep 05, 2013 at 05:22:50PM +0800, Sanjeev Gupta <ghane0@gmail.com> wrote a message of 107 lines which said:
Adam Smith was right, the baker and the butcher feed me by being selfish.
So, apparently, there is no consensus among the Atlas community. An interesting discussion to have in Athens?
On 05.09.2013, at 11:42 , Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@nic.fr> wrote:
On Thu, Sep 05, 2013 at 05:22:50PM +0800, Sanjeev Gupta <ghane0@gmail.com> wrote a message of 107 lines which said:
Adam Smith was right, the baker and the butcher feed me by being selfish.
So, apparently, there is no consensus among the Atlas community. An interesting discussion to have in Athens?
It is a discussion we should have in the mat-wg. The working groups work on the mailing lists; physical meetings are just focal points for the work. Daniel
participants (11)
-
Alex Saroyan -
Bengt Gördén -
Daniel AJ Sokolov (lists) -
Daniel Karrenberg -
Jelte -
Mike. -
Peter Gervai -
Peter Koch -
Sanjeev Gupta -
Stephane Bortzmeyer -
Tom Guptill