Dear Nigel! May i clarify some things? Did i get right, that "RIPE NCC is secretariat for community" is a fairy tale, told to RIPE Meetings newcomers? And relations of RIPE NCC to RIPE Community are just 4 letters E I P R in the name? And Number Resources allocation in this region happens not on behalf of Community, but because of some kind of MoUs signed by Dutch association with American corporation owned by other American corporation? And all those are official statements of the RIPE NCC Executive Board? Kind regards, Alexander Isavnin
There's probably no need to formalise the NCC-RIPE relationship with anything more than a sentence saying "The NCC (Board) will take account of the policies developed by RIPE whenever it deploys and operates services". ie The NCC listens to RIPE but isn't compelled to obey no matter what.
Jim beat me to it (they obviously get up earlier North of The Border).
The NCC Board does of course take account of policies, and also comments on them as part of the evaluation process that the NCC does during policy development. In all cases up until now we have instructed the NCC to follow policy. However, as board members we have certain fiduciary duties which cannot be overridden by policy. Faced with a situation such as Jim describes we have two choices: not implement the policy or resign and hope that someone else agrees to carry the can.
Nigel Chairman RIPE NCC Board
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