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NRO and ASO Mourn the Passing of Alan Barrett
by Ulka Athale 01 Jun '26

01 Jun '26

This message is sent on behalf of the Number Resource Organization. The announcement is available at: https://aso.icann.org/nro-and-aso-mourns-the-passing-of-alan-barrett/ -------------------- NRO and ASO Mourn the Passing of Alan Barrett On behalf of the NRO Executive Council and the NRO Number Council, we wish to express how deeply saddened we are by the passing of Alan Barrett on 28 May 2026 in Cape Town. Alan was someone who shaped the Internet not because it was his job, but because he genuinely believed in what it can do. He helped bring the first Internet connection to South African universities in 1990, co-founded the country’s first commercial ISP in 1993, and is credited with creating the .co.za zone. Long before many of us were thinking about Internet governance as a field, Alan was already doing the work. Alan was also central to the creation of AFRINIC. He co-authored the original proposal in 1997 and served on the steering committee that brought the organization into being. He later served on the AFRINIC Board, spent a decade on the NRO Number Council, and led AFRINIC as its CEO from 2015 to 2019. More recently, he represented the Address Supporting Organization on the ICANN Board — appointed in 2021 and again in 2024. Alan will be remembered not only for his technical expertise and leadership, but also for his generosity, integrity, and willingness to support the community whenever called upon. He was a trusted colleague, a thoughtful contributor, and a friend to many across the Internet community. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Kerry, his family, and the many colleagues and friends who were fortunate enough to work alongside him. He will be missed. — Jia Rong Low, NRO EC Chair — Hervé Clément, NRO NC Chair -- Kind regards, Ulka Athale Community Development Manager RIPE NCC www.ripe.net

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In memoriam: Alan Barrett
by Remco van Mook 01 Jun '26

01 Jun '26

Shared on behalf of Kerry Barrett and the family Dear friends and colleagues, As some of you will already be aware, it is with immense sadness that we confirm, on behalf of his wife Kerry and the family, the passing of Alan Barrett. Alan died on May 28th in Cape Town, South Africa, following a diagnosis of late-stage cancer about a month ago. We are sharing this notice so that the community has accurate information at a moment when Kerry and the family need space to grieve. Alan was a friend, a willing listener, and someone who always stepped up to help when called upon. His contributions to the African Internet ecosystem were second to none, and with his passing we lose not only a friend but a giant of the industry. In 1990, Alan helped establish the very first Internet connection to South African universities, and in 1993 he co-founded the country's first commercial Internet Service Provider. In 1997 he co-authored the proposal to create AfriNIC and subsequently served on the steering committee tasked with bringing it into being. Alan served on the AfriNIC board from 2004 to 2009 and was a member of the NRO NC from 2004 to 2014. In 2015 he was appointed CEO of AfriNIC, a role he held until 2019. Beyond Africa, he was a central participant in the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group, and until his death served on the ICANN board on behalf of the Address Supporting Organisation. Alan will be sorely missed by the community, his relatives and by his wife, Kerry. Kerry and the family ask for privacy at this time. We will be organising an online memorial in due course and will share details once they are available. Andrew Alston Remco van Mook

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Consensus for RIPE Working Group Chair Job Description and Procedures
by Mirjam Kühne 29 May '26

29 May '26

Dear colleagues, The last call for the new version of the RIPE Working Group Chairs Job Description and Procedures [1] ended last week. We did not receive any additional comments. I therefore declare consensus on the document and asked the RIPE NCC to publish it as a RIPE document. Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne RIPE Chair [1] https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/draft…

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govts need sysadmin help
by Randy Bush 28 May '26

28 May '26

https://internetcleanup.foundation/2026/05/european-governments-3000-tracki…

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RIP Alan Barrett
by Petra.Zeidler＠dlr.de 28 May '26

28 May '26

Hi, https://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/650636-alan-barrett-the-man-who-crea ted+-co-za-has-died.html among the hats he wore, he also was a NetBSD developer. He will be missed. kind regards, Petra Zeidler Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR) Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum | DFD-INF | Oberpfaffenhofen, Münchener Str. 20 | 82234 Weßling Petra Zeidler Telefon +49 8153 28 4295 | Telefax +49 8153 28 1448 | petra.zeidler(a)dlr.de | http://www.dlr.de/eoc

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RIPE 92 Highlights and Thank You!
by Mirjam Kühne 22 May '26

22 May '26

Dear colleagues, RIPE 92 ended with a total of 626 attendees checked in onsite in Edinburgh and 309 checked in online across the meeting week, with more joining in via the livestream and YouTube. Thank you all for making this RIPE Meeting such a success! We were happy to see active participation at this meeting from both online and onsite participants. We would like to thank all the speakers, Working Group Chairs, the Programme Committee, the Code of Conduct Team and our sponsors for their contributions. Over the past week, we have had many exciting plenary sessions, lightning talks, Working Group sessions, BoFs and social events. You can find the highlights from each day in the Daily Meeting Blog at: https://labs.ripe.net/author/ripe-ncc-commsies/ripe-92-daily-meeting-blog/ All presentations from the meeting are archived: https://ripe92.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/sessions/ You can already register for RIPE 93, taking place in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 26-30 October 2026. The call for presentations will open in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for the announcement! You can get updates via the RIPE Discussion list, social media and the RIPE 93 website: https://ripe93.ripe.net Best regards, Mirjam Kühne, RIPE Chair, and Anna Wilson, RIPE Vice-Chair

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Survey: Total Cost of Peering (ISOC)
by Amreesh Phokeer 21 May '26

21 May '26

Dear all, As part of our Sustainable Peering Infrastructure<https://www.internetsociety.org/our-work/connectivity/peering/> project, the Internet Society (ISOC) is conducting a short survey to better understand the total cost of peering across different networks and regions. If you are involved in interconnection, peering, or network operations, we would greatly appreciate your input. The survey takes only a few minutes to complete: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DJ7JWX3 Your responses will help inform ongoing work on the economics of interconnection and support efforts to improve Internet resilience and affordability. Many thanks in advance for your participation. Regards, Amreesh Phokeer Internet Society

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BondingShouldBeFree Open-source Network Aggregation & Redundancy Solution
by Chester A. Unal 21 May '26

21 May '26

Hello everyone. Apologies if this is not the appropriate place to post. I have written an open-source network bonding solution with intent to have it become the gold standard of network bonding using MPTCP. This post includes all the details: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/bondingshouldbefree-open-source-network-aggrega… I'm looking for ISPs and any other parties interested to deploy it and give me feedback. Cheers. Chester Arinc

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Constanze
by constanze buerger 20 May '26

20 May '26

Good morning everyone, Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend RIPE 92, as I started a new position in April. I’m still continuing my work in the NRO Number Council / ASO AC with pleasure, and Andrei Robachevsky and Hervé Clément will support you on site on behalf of the NRO NC. Wishing you all a great and successful meeting — I’ll miss you. See you soon, Constanze

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Working group chair (s)election process (11 of them)
by Sasha Romijn 18 May '26

18 May '26

Hi all, I'd like to start a discussion on the way we select working group chairs. I brought this up on the wg-chairs list some time ago, and saw dns-wg is discussing it[1] as well, so I thought I'd bring it to the wider list. The latest wg chair job description draft[2] says: > Each WG selects their chairs with a clearly defined process on a regular basis. The process should be announced in advance and clearly described to the WG members in advance in order to avoid surprise and to encourage as many volunteers as possible. > ... > - A selection process that also allows for online participation My initial questions to the community, with elaboration below: 1. Who should be eligible to participate in a chair selection, either by vote or sharing views? Mailing list subscribers? People who have actively contributed in the past N months? Anyone present at the session (in person? also remote?)? Anyone signed up to the mailing list before a certain time? Checked in for a certain number of RIPE meetings? Something else? I've seen no objections to my quote from the new draft job description, that online participation needs to be possible. (Explicitly not talking about who is eligible to be a chair candidate here, that's out of scope for now, I'm only talking about who should have a voice in the decision.) 2. Should "selection" and "election" be more clearly distinguished? What distinguishes contributing to the consensus from a vote? If we're effectively running an election, should we design it properly rather than calling it something else? Should there be a minimum length for something to be "a statement of support", vs e.g. 15x "+1 for Sasha"? To be clear, I am not in favour of electing chairs, but even less in favour of pretending we do one thing while doing another. 3. Do we actually need 11 slightly different processes to select a chair, one for each working group? I am aware there have historically been some strong opinions on having individual processes, but I'm not convinced this serves our community. We could also still distinguish "special interest groups" from "deciding what the RIPE NCC should do" and have two, depending on the harm a "malicious" chair could do. Though I don't feel that latter factor is reflected in current complexity. I bring this up, because over the years I've been involved in chair selection from several angles: as a candidate, as someone trying to encourage others to put themselves forward, seeing it in other working groups. I've had a look at all the existing WG chair selection procedures, details below. They vary quite a bit: in-person vs. remote participation, mailing list vs. meeting session, explicit ballots vs. consensus. They share a common structure: candidates are presented, WG members express views, chairs declare a consensus, kind of. With some exceptions: open source currently claims to do voting, but we have not actually done that. What "expressing views" and "WG members" mean is vague. One way this is visible: some selections I've watched start to look more like an election, on the mailing list. The chairs will ask for "send your statements of support to the list", and then the mailing list fills with "+1 to <name>". In more than one case, candidates saw the +1's on the list, got their (otherwise not RIPE involved) personal network to sign up to the list, and send +1's too. That creates an awkward situation for the chairs, and I can say from personal experience it is also awkward as a candidate. Some of the current procedures explicitly tie participation to physical presence at a RIPE meeting. DNS explicitly says "mailing list". Most leave it vague. The process for disputes varies wildly too: delegate to RIPE chair, have some voting process run by the RIPE NCC, or undocumented. Many selections are reasonably smooth, I feel we struggle more with finding candidates to begin with, which means some of our "consenus" has an element of "well, glad someone volunteered, sounds fine" (without me meaning to downplay the qualities of all those volunteers). But vague processes certainly can hurt signups for chair position too. Comparison: RIPE PC selection is a straightforward election, open to in-person and remote meeting attendees. I am not advocating we do this for chairs. More similar is the RIPE chair selection, but that process is far too heavy for WGs. I do think it is a good example of a process with similar underlying goals though. I am interested to hear what the community thinks. Is there a real problem to solve? And if so, how should we move towards a solution? I think Mirjam was planning to bring this up in the RIPE community plenary as well. Sasha (without my hat as opensource wg co-chair, but fully acknowledging we are part of this problem, though we hope to bring an improved version to the list soon) [1] https://mailman.ripe.net/archives/list/dns-wg@ripe.net/thread/B4WK4MHXJVCLB… [2] https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/draft… Thanks to Raymond Jetten, Brian Nisbet, Leo Vegoda, and our RIPE chairs for their input in earlier threads. == Current policies: Connect and Database say: > WG members express their approval or otherwise of the presented candidates … the Chair(s) declare a decision MAT (the shortest process of all) and RIPE NCC services are similar but not identical to Connect and Database. IOT says: > The incoming co-chair will be chosen by the WG using consensus and the remaining co-chair will make the consensus determination. IPv6 and Security say: > WG Chairs are elected at WG sessions at RIPE meetings. Anyone physically present at the WG session is eligible to participate in the selection process. The candidate does not need to be physically present at the WG session. > If possible the Chair should be elected by acclamation by the WG or by consensus after discussion. If the result is unclear, then a secret ballot should be held. In the case of a ballot, votes will be counted by RIPE NCC Staff and/or Chairs of other WGs. The result will be determined by simple majority. Address policy is similar to IPv6, except with slightly different in-person/remote requirements: > The working group will select new chair(s) at the RIPE Address Policy Working Group session. Those present at the session, either in person or remotely, will determine by consensus among themselves who takes the available position(s). The remaining chair will determine whether consensus has been reached. If the working group finds itself without a chair the RIPE chair will determine consensus. > If no consensus can be reached then a secret ballot to elect the new chair(s) will be held at the working group session. Everyone physically present at the session can participate in the secret ballot. Votes will be counted by RIPE NCC Staff, and the result will be determined using proportional representation through the single transferable vote, otherwise known as PR-STV. The winner(s) of the secret ballot will become the new chair(s). DNS, where consensus can explicitly also be a tie: > At the end of a co-chair's term, the WG will decide by consensus who is appointed to the available co-chair position. In the event of a tie, the consensus tied candidates will draw lots. Consensus will be determined on the DNS WG mailing list Routing: > these are generally appointed by consensus of those present at a Working Group meeting. Open source: > If there is one (or more) application, the current co-chair and the new candidate start to discuss about among themselves who will be serving next terms. If no consensus is reached until 14 days before RIPE, then we'll have a voting at the RIPE meeting.

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