[ncc-services-wg] Divergence of RIPE / RIPE NCC policy

Hi,

[Internet Citizen hat on]

On Thu, 2013-03-21 at 00:42 +0000, Nick Hilliard wrote:
> We have a mechanism for dealing with RIPE policy.  It may not be perfect,
> but it has full community support and we accept that it is generally a good
> basis for handling policy issues.  If the process has problems such that
> difficult issues like resource certification lead to stalemate, then either
> the PDP needs to be re-examined or else the issues are truly too
> contentious to be implemented.
> 
> Sidelining the PDP because it might produce the wrong result is not the way
> to deal with this situation.  If the PDP needs to be fixed, then let us fix it.
> 

(~Specific to RPKI)
I agree with nick and can openly admit to being part of the small(*) but
vocal opposition to 2008-08.  I apologize for learning about the topic
late, but as soon as I did (2010) and grasped the gravity of the
implications it *will* bring (to me, it's a fact), I did my internet
citizenry duty ~best I could.

[ *A major problem is the topic is extremely complex and
multi-dimensional, and most people who you talk to about it, and even
make them understand, don't know where to turn to discuss it.
  RIPE Policy seems a difficult, perhaps bureaucratic beast at first, to
most. A friend on IRC asked: "where do we discuss open internet
questions?" Is RIPE this forum? RIPE certainly goes around in ~IGF
conferences claiming to be representing us somehow, today...]

This brings us to the general problem here:
In which way is the RIPE NCC (Inc.) basing its monopoly integer
registration operation on the internet at large, rather than its paying
members?


There's some argument that a service may or may not be subject for
policy, such as measurement services, atlas, etc. Or that the RIPE DB is
not.
To me it's absolutely obvious and clear that matters with implications
for not just internet addressing and resource registration &
coordination, which RIPE NCC has been given a monopoly from the
community to operate (because it's an easy way to do it), but also
routing, are a matter of community sourced policy.  This absolutely and
definitely includes the RIPE DB, in the sense of it being where the
distribution of addresses is documented.  If there's no documentation,
distribution may or may not work, but coordination absolutely does not.
This task, not just from paying members, but from everybody, is not a
one-way relationship.

If it ever becomes a one-way relationship, the RIPE NCC will lose the
legitimacy of its operation (business) and I don't think there's anyone
here who want that pandoras box to open?

And thus this is a discussion of principle.  The go-around was ignored.
Damage to the relationship has occurred.
How does the RIPE NCC and RIPE Community which to resolve this?
Do we want to resolve it, and how? 
Or is it time to part ways (and thereby by extension openly inviting
competition to registry operations...)
I have some ideas for the specific "single registry point of failure"
issue which was overarching the debates surrounding 2008-08. 

This is perhaps a bit "meta", but it is extremely fundamental to what we
are doing, higher-order politics aside.

Best regards,
Martin