[members-discuss] GM topic

Hi Gert and all,

We are discussing about the RIPE NCC membership Fee which is a service fee.

The fee is intended to cover the costs for the expenses of the services used 
more or less individual by the NCC members and additional activities of the RIPE NCC.  

IMHO it should not be misused as tax. (The german word for Tax is "Steuern",
which means: to control/direct/regulate ). 

We may discuss, if a flatrate model is the best or if those members, consuming
more services ( != hold ressouces) should pay more fees, was a better model. 

Finally I would maybe follow an argumentation, that additional ASNs could
cause more overhead for the RIPE NCC, for example in the Routing Database
and would accept a moderate fee if it was in relation to the real overhead.

BTW, I was speaking about members. I never understood the sense of multiple
LIRs per member, except that it was enabling members to get more "last /22" 
by paying Setup- and annual fees for it.

Andreas Schmieja  

On Tue, Apr 30, 2024 at 08:21:01PM +0200, Gert Doering wrote:
	 Hi,
	 
	 On Tue, Apr 30, 2024 at 03:09:30PM +0200, Patrick Velder wrote:
	 > Apart from that, the membership said "no" twice to ASN fees. Introducing
	 > them through the back door is not fair and will probably fail a 3rd time.
	 > Please accept the fact that the community does not want ASN fees.
	 
	 We had ASN fees, and they disappeared through a less-than-transparent
	 process.  The AP WG has clearly voiced a need for an ASN reclaim mechanism
	 that is more cost efficient than "hostmasters calling up members on a
	 regular basis and asking 'is this still in use?'" - and a yearly fee,
	 trivially affordable but annoying enough to question yourself(!) "do I
	 still need that?" is working nicely.
	 
	 So it's up there for a vote again - and this has nothing to do with
	 "backdoor".  It's one option.  It will *lower* the fee for all members
	 that have 0 or 1 ASN, and members that hand out ASNs like they are free
	 should have had this in their financial plannings.  Our sponsoring LIR
	 contracts all have the clause "and we charge whatever RIPE asks us for,
	 plus a handling fee"...
	 
	 Gert Doering