RIPE NCC General Meeting April 2012 - Minutes

1. Welcome, Preliminaries

Nigel Titley, Chairman of the RIPE NCC Executive Board, opened the RIPE NCC General Meeting (GM) at 18:03 (UTC +2) on 18 April 2012 and welcomed attendees.

2. Report from the RIPE NCC

The detailed Report from the RIPE NCC for the GM was presented in the RIPE NCC Services Working Group, which constituted the first part of the GM. This took place adjacent to the GM on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 at 16:00. GM attendees that were registered for the RIPE 64 Meeting were welcome to participate in this working group session.

The Report from the RIPE NCC was not repeated in the second part of the GM.

3. Presentation of the RIPE NCC 2011 Financial Report

Jochem de Ruig, RIPE NCC Chief Financial Officer, presented the RIPE NCC 2011 Financial Report. The presentation is available at:
https://www.ripe.net/lir-services/ncc/gm/april-2012/presentations/financial-report-2011/

There were no questions.

4. Adoption of the RIPE NCC 2011 Audited Financial Report

The formal resolution:
"The General Meeting adopts the 2011 Financial Report of the RIPE NCC."

You can find the RIPE NCC 2011 Financial Report in the Annual Report 2011.

Voting for this resolution took place under Agenda point 10.

5. Discharge of the Executive Board

The formal resolution:

"The General Meeting discharges the Executive Board with regard to its actions as they appear from the Annual Report 2011."

Voting for this resolution takes place under Agenda point 10.

6. Financial Status Q1/2012 and Outlook

Jochem de Ruig, RIPE NCC Chief Financial Officer, presented the financial status after the first quarter of 2012 and gave the outlook for the year ahead. The presentation is available at:
https://www.ripe.net/lir-services/ncc/gm/april-2012/presentations/financial-update/

There were no questions.

7. Report from the Charging Scheme Task Force

Eva Ornberg from the RIPE NCC Charging Scheme Task Force presented the Charging Scheme Task Force Report. The presentation is available at:
https://www.ripe.net/lir-services/ncc/gm/april-2012/presentations/report-of-the-charging-scheme-task-force/

A member said the previous Charging Scheme was budget neutral and that this should continue to be the case. He also said that he was in favour of the proposed new timeline for the Charging Scheme. He added that in the case of a revenue shortfall in a given year, this does not automatically mean the fees have to be increased as the cost base (Budget) can also be lowered to balance the revenue and expenses.

A member asked, based on the proposed timeline, if there would be no vote on a new Charging Scheme until May 2013.

The RIPE NCC Executive Board Treasurer, Remco van Mook, said that changing the Charging Scheme timeframe would only take place in the coming year 2013. He explained that there would have to be a vote on a proposed 2013 Charging Scheme in September 2012 and then another vote on a proposed 2014 Charging Scheme in May 2013.

A member said that he would prefer if the Charging Scheme incentivised take-up of IPv6 for another year or two.

Eva said that because IPv4 is running out now, it is easier to remove the incentive straight away.

Piotr Strzyzewski, who was a member of the Charging Scheme Task Force, said the Charging Scheme was not the correct way to stimulate IPv6 adoption, even though the technology was not currently mature enough.

A member disagreed with this, saying that financial incentives are most effective. He asked about AS Numbers not being charged for and wondered if this would be compatible with RIPE Policy, referring to the adoption of RIPE Policy Proposal 2007-01

Eva said that if you have an AS Number then you would also have IP address resources, so those members requesting AS Numbers will be charged for their IP addresses. She added that AS Number requests do not require a lot of work and that not charging for them simplifies the fee structure.

A member agreed with Eva's points, saying it would also be better to create a Charging Scheme that would not have to be changed in a year's time.

A member asked why the fee for PI should be associated with the size of the assignment because there should be no PI sub-assignments.

Piotr said that the workload for the RIPE NCC when making a larger assignment of PI is considerable, and the task force made the recommendation to account for this. He said fairness of prices was something that was also considered when reaching this recommendation.

Eva added that people asking for large assignments of PI address space could just as well become RIPE NCC members.

The member said she wasn't aware that there was any evidence for the idea that larger PI assignments take much more work, and she suggested that the RIPE NCC resource analysts might be able to provide some. She also asked if such a recommendation would discourage LIRs from becoming sponsoring LIRs for End Users requiring PI address space.

Eva said that there would be no double charging for PI address space. She also said that the sponsoring LIR would be charged whatever was in the Charging Scheme, but the LIR could past this cost on to the customer requesting the address space.

The member accepted this and advised that proper consideration be given before changing the principles under which PI address space is charged.

A member said he was a legacy address space resource holder and he said typically legacy address space holdings were quite large. He said this should be taken into account when deciding to charge legacy address space holders who bring their address space into the registration system as PI address space. He also pointed out that the proposed removal of the charge reduction based on the age of the resource would be a disincentive to bring PA legacy address space into the registration system. He concluded that this could have a negative impact on the registration data quality.

A member, who participated remotely, asked why legacy address space holders should pay RIPE NCC fees.

Eva said that the task force recommends charging legacy address space holders because the RIPE NCC does provide services for them. She said that the decision was a matter for the RIPE NCC Executive Board and that the task force only gives a recommendation to the Board.

A member said, looking back to when the current Charging Scheme was formulated, that it was decided to charge based on the services provided by the RIPE NCC and not on the resources held by the LIR. He said the idea behind the that LIRs pay less for aging resources was that it took a lot of interaction with the RIPE NCC when the resources were first received, but this reduced over time. He said this might not work in a world where IPv4 resources were running out. He advised the Executive Board should be careful not to charge in a way that makes IP addresses look like assets and to instead look at charging based on services provided.

Piotr said the task force was aware that the legacy address space holdings would be quite large but the recommendation was that no matter what the size of the holding, the legacy address space holder should move into the Extra Small category.

A member said it should be kept in mind that the legacy address space holders were often very different types of organisations, and the charge for the space should depend on what they actually want to do with that address space. He asked what was the appropriate place to continue the discussion on the Charging Scheme after the GM was finished.

The Chairman said that the discussion should take place on the members-discuss mailing list.

A member, who participated remotely, asked if there was a way to convert PI address space into PA address space, and vice versa.

The Chairman said he did not know but it was something the Executive Board would investigate.

Niall O'Reilly, HEAnet, said that he was not a RIPE NCC member but he asked that the GM take note of the presentation he gave in the RIPE NCC Services Working Group immediately prior to the GM on creating a policy to cover the provision of RIPE NCC services to legacy address space holders.

8. Report from the Executive Board

Nigel Titley, Chairman of the RIPE NCC Executive Board, gave the Report from the RIPE NCC Executive Board. The presentation is available at:
https://www.ripe.net/lir-services/ncc/gm/april-2012/presentations/report-from-the-ripe-ncc-executive-board/

A member said that with the closure of the Test Traffic Measurement (TTM) service, the RIPE NCC acted without policy recommendations and this was a concern.

RIPE NCC Executive Board member Christian Kaufmann said the decision was made following feedback from such areas as the RIPE NCC Membership and Stakeholder Survey 2011. He said the process under which the decision was made might not have been perfect and the Executive Board noted this.

A member said he shared the concerns over TTM, which he said had a model that people paid for. He said it would be more difficult to make money from RIPE Atlas. He said commercial gain could reduce the financial burden on members. He said that terminating a service that generates income and replacing it with a service that has an uncertain revenue stream is a concern.

The Chairman clarified that the income from TTM did not cover the costs for TTM; it was running an operational loss. He said RIPE Atlas might be able to take on some of the functionality of TTM and the Executive Board will take on the comment and strive for full functionality at a low cost.

9. RIPE NCC Executive Board Elections

The RIPE NCC Executive Board election was to fill the seat being vacated by Dmitry Burkov.

The three Executive Board candidates introduced themselves and gave a brief explanation of their motivation for standing for the Executive Board seat.

Voting for this election takes place under Agenda point 10.

10. Voting on Resolutions and for Executive Board Seat

Nigel Titley, Chairman of the RIPE NCC Executive Board, gave a presentation on voting at the RIPE NCC General Meeting. The presentation is available at:
https://www.ripe.net/lir-services/ncc/gm/april-2012/presentations/voting-at-ripe-ncc-general-meetings/

Resolution A:

"The General Meeting adopts the 2011 Financial Report of the RIPE NCC."

Discussion of this resolution took place under Agenda point 4.

Resolution B:

"The General Meeting discharges the Executive Board with regard to its actions as they appear from the Annual Report 2011."

Discussion of this resolution took place under Agenda point 5.

Executive Board election voting:

The RIPE NCC Executive Board election was to fill the seat being vacated by Dmitry Burkov.

Discussion of this election took place under Agenda point 9.

11. Announcement of Resolution and Election Results

Resolution A

"The General Meeting adopts the 2011 Financial Report of the RIPE NCC."

The result was as follows:

The resolution was passed.

Resolution B

"The General Meeting discharges the Executive Board with regard to its actions as they appear from the Annual Report 2011."

RIPE NCC Executive Board Election

The RIPE NCC Executive Board election was to fill the seat being vacated by Dmitry Burkov. The result was as follows.

Dmitry Burkov was elected on the first count and retained his seat on the RIPE NCC Executive Board.

12. Close

The Executive Board Chairman closed the GM at 15:50 (UTC +2) on 19 April 2012.