[mat-wg] Using Atlas for commercial services

Dear All,

In order to provide data points for the discussion:

>>> As far as I know, it's only possible to earn credits by
>>> - hosting probes itself
>>> - sponsoring new probes
>>> - getting a LIR

These are indeed the main "wealth generation" processes in RIPE Atlas.

There is also a fourth one: asking the RIPE Atlas team (community builders
or developers) for extra credits to do a particular (costly) measurement, or
research or such [1]. We have no capacity issues in the system yet so this
is not really a problem, and it helps virtually everyone.

There's also the possibility to transfer credits between accounts, but that
does not generate wealth, it just redistributes it.

> But isn't load management *precisely* why the credit system exists?

Indeed that's the reason why the credit system exists: to ensure fairness in
terms of resources provided vs. resources used.


Hope this helps the discussion,
Robert


[1] This includes our own researches -- though admittedly we don't have a
hard time convincing ourselves to give more credits to ourselves :-)