[members-discuss] Proposal for New RIPE NCC Charging Scheme Model

On Jul 16, 2012, at 10:45 PM, LIR wrote:
> RIPE is managing a public resource, and usage should be fair and 
> available to all.
> 
> Who is using a lot of a resources which are rare and exausted should pay 
> accordingly, as he/she is using a public resource and others are denied 
> this usage because of him. So the community should have a gain from this 
> concession.
> 
> So, very simply, IPs are like water, air: a PUBLIC resource!!!!!

Agreed,

and as said the non-profit/profit issue is a formality that has nothing to to with this: it is possible to have a membership fee that is proportional with resource usage and keep a non-profit status, as well as the opposite.

I find a little bit disturbing that the two things get confused.

If the question is "can we have a membership fee that substantially depends on the number of public and limited resources used while keeping the nonprofit status" is turned into a "can we sell IP addresses and keep a nonprofit status" then the answer is obvious, but that's not how things are.

I do not think that reiterating the profit/nonprofit thing is a good answer, as the model I proposed that substantially makes the membership fee depend on the number of limited resources a LIR uses does not imply a profit status at all, on the contrary: it is formally IDENTICAL to what RIPE did for years….

Regards,

A.