Waiving of Fees for

[Daniel Karrenberg <]

Dear contributors,

it seems that we do not have consensus in the case of Microlink from
Estonia. We also do not seem to have consensus to evaluate these cases
individually by the Contributors Committee. There have been requests to
formalise this process.

Personally I have my doubts about formalisation. The waiving of fees is
intended for special circumstances. It is difficult to formalise special
circumstances and to set up rules for such a thing.

We have three possibilities:


1) Continue evaluation of requests individually by the committee, i.e. 
   asking all contributors whether they are willing to subsidise each case.

2) Discontinue any fee wavers.

3) Evaluation of requests by the NCC according to a policy set by the
   contributors.


Pro 1: Each request gets scrutiny of all contributors, especially those in
       the same region as requestor. No need to draw up difficult rules.

Con 1: Needs effort by contributors. Maybe decisions are not always 
       consistent (although this can be helped by support from the NCC).
       Maybe consensus can never be reached anymore because of size of 
       ncc-co.


Pro 2: Easy to implement. Consistent.

Con 2: Makes it difficult to establish a registry in "new Internet" places.
       results in "monopoly" of last-resort registries there.
       Encourages dubious registration practises.


Pro 3: No effort by contributors. Consistency.

Con 3: Large effort in draewing up rules for exceptional cases.
       Difficult to fit cases to the rules.


I personally prefer soloutions 1 or 2. 

I'll ask Steve Druck to put this on the agenda for the next meeting.
I'll also circulate some possible rules for case 3 later on.

Comments welcome

Daniel