[members-discuss] Input from Membership on RIPE NCC Charging Scheme Model

On 09/16/2016 07:26 AM, Prager-IT e.U. wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 2:07 PM, Daniel Pearson 
> <daniel at privatesystems.net <mailto:daniel at privatesystems.net>> wrote:
>
>     Sorry to say but I really don't think you are seeing the picture.
>
>     I fail to see how dropping yearly fee's, increasing 'setup' fee's
>     will accomplish anything. Perhaps spend some time and do the math
>     out and put an actual outline with some numbers behind it and then
>     match that upto the required budget to operate RIPE.
>
>
> Charging every member for the amount of resources they are using will 
> bring back some fairness in an inherently unfair system.

Business is not fair, it is a competitive market place. Hell, life isn't 
fair. Are you going to cry foul if you sell chicken and someone opens a 
chicken shop next door. Is it fair if either one of you gets more 
customers than the other or do you make the police count how many 
customers go into each shop and divide them up?

>
>     You specifically say this:
>
>     "After the membership has approved the new plan via a majority
>     vote there will be an excess in money available due to the higher
>     setup fee. The price will be determined by availability."
>
>     RIPE having an 'excess' of money, will simply mean that money is
>     returned to its members. The price is not determined by
>     availability of resources, it is determined primarily by the
>     operating costs of RIPE its self.
>
>
> Under my plan the RIPE NCC will use that excess money to buy back 
> resources from RIPE NCC members who are willing to give back some of 
> their resources.
>
> The amount of resources members are willing to give back will 
> influence the price the RIPE NCC would be willing to pay from the 
> excess funds.

RIPE cannot and will not do this, let me explain why. According to RIPE, 
and most RIR's, their stance is that you do not "own" the IP addresses 
that are given to you, and that they can technically take them back at 
any time. So now, you are wanting to pay people to get these addresses 
back. This will contradict every agreement & contract with every LIR out 
there in RIPE and effectively make the statement that you do not own the 
IP addresses null and void. So congratulations, you just turned 
everyone's IP space into Legacy owned IP space and that's what I'd argue 
in court and probably win.


>
>
>     Specifically lets look at the Articles of Association that govern
>     RIPE.
>
>
>           Article 3 – The Association: Objective
>
>     The objective of the Association is to perform activities for the
>     benefit of the Members, primarily activities that the Members need
>     to organize as a group. This object can be sub-divided into the
>     following activities:
>
>       * Registration Activities related to the role of the Association
>         as Regional Internet Registry;
>       * Co-ordination Activities, including the support of the stable
>         operation of the Internet;
>       * Administration Activities, including all regular reports and
>         administrative support as well as all other general
>         administrative tasks which cannot be attributed to a specific
>         activity;
>       * New Activities, including all activities which are necessary
>         to react to the rapidly changing world of the Internet; and to
>         do all that is connected therewith or may be conducive
>         thereto, all this in the widest sense of the word. *Making
>         profit is not an object of the Association.*
>
>
>     So if RIPE cannot make a profit, then it is impossible for it to
>     set fee's so high that would make any impact and thus limits the
>     whole game to a 21,000,000 million EUR bubble, which is TINY
>     compared to some of the power house IT companies budgets.
>
>
> If the RIPE NCC wants to protect the remaining resources the setup fee 
> needs to be increased either way, it is as simple as that. As I 
> already said the excess amount will be used to buy back resources from 
> members that are willing to give them back. Buying back resources 
> instead of dispersing excess money will benefit future LIRs as they 
> may still be able to get a small amount of IPv4 resources and make the 
> entire system more efficient if you provide LIRs with unused resources 
> an easy way to give back some resources and provide them with a 
> reimbursement.

I'm sorry but this is a pipe dream. Open market IPv4 addresses are 
already reaching quite high costs, nearing 10-12 EUR per IP. So, lets 
say RIPE gets a deal and buys back IP space at 10 EUR an IP. With their 
excess budget that was refunded, they could have bought back, what, a 
/13 if they are lucky. Of course now that RIPE is buying addresses back, 
the price will likely go up even more, as will fee's from RIPE.

You basically created an endless market loop that will eat its self into 
destruction.

RIPE should not and cannot buy IP space, I guarantee something like this 
will end very badly for RIPE, likely violates god knows how many 
different charters and agreements between governments, RIR's IANA etc.



>
>
> Kind Regards,
> Stefan Prager
> --
> Prager-IT e.U.
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>
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