[members-discuss] [comms-circle] Re: [ncc-announce] [GM] Executive Board Meeting to Discuss Charging Scheme Input from Members

> On 14. May 2024, at 14:33, Daniel Pearson <daniel at privatesystems.net> wrote:
> To your point > "The RIPE NCC needs the budget to keep operating"
> 
> No one disagrees that RIPE doesn't need a budget, but for two years now we have been telling RIPE to reduce it's budget, yet they continue to hire employees, and propose an increased budget every year.

They’re not increasing the budget, they’re keeping it in sync with the high inflation and the difficult economic environment. Also, a decision to start cutting costs was already made after the GM last year, but this doesn’t seem to have registered with many people complaining here. The EB already noted last year that the charging scheme should be increased to keep the financial situation stable. That was not what the membership wanted. This year it was no option to keep the charging scheme which I think shouldn’t have surprised anyone that was listening to the reports last year.

> > "If you want a change (I don’t), go through the available options, the board members explained multiple times what these are and that they’re listening to your complaints."
> 
> We did, the 'resolution' was added to be voted upon but it will carry no weight.

Because the option is to change the Activity Plan, not the funding for the Activity Plan. That the member proposal to keep the current charging scheme was just a performative thing and nothing that could change the available voting options was known *before* the proposal was created. Still it was created and still people complain that this fact remains a fact even after the proposal was created and reached the required support. Also the proposal had no input at all on how to achieve the goal of the proposal. It was and still is not a feasible proposal at all.

> Why? What is so difficult that could not be achieved over the last 2 years to reduce the budget to maintain the existing charging scheme. As a private company if you don't have the money (sales) to cover expenses you cut your budget. Sure you can raise prices on your consumers, and some companies do so, but smart companies know that it's a balancing act, and I've seen no visible signs of RIPE taking budget cuts seriously, so why should we be forced to pay more for their fiscal irresponsibility. They created this issue with the rush to register more LIR's just to get the last few block assignments, now the cash cow is gone and they got use to an increased budget.

Almost all companies increased prices over the last years due to inflation and the economic climate. I’m not sure why people expect the RIPE NCC to just ignore that. The rush of new LIRs created a lot of problems for the RIPE NCC, not at least because many people tried to cheat the system and make profit off of it. The RIPE NCC needed to increase their expenditures just to deal with all the work that created. Don’t blame the RIPE NCC for these shady business people. We’re still seeing the effects of that and will continue to do so over the coming years as more and more LIRs get closed.

I would suggest the membership to work with the RIPE NCC and the EB to find out where cost cutting is effective and wanted. As I already stated, I still see a lot of value for the money we pay as members. The RIPE NCC is not a for-profit company. It is there for its members, for the RIPE community and the worldwide community that makes the Internet what it is. If people are just here to get or sell their IP space they might not see what a difference that makes.

Regards

Sebastian
-- 
Sebastian Wiesinger
Senior Principal Network Architect
Service Integration

noris network AG
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Deutschland

Tel +49 911 9352 1459
Fax +49 911 9352 100
Email sebastian.wiesinger at noris.de

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