[ripe-list] Last Call for Draft Document: RIPE NCC Staff Participation in the RIPE Community

Hi, Denis.

I'm copying Mirjam and Hans Petter, who are co-authors with me of the proposed document.

On 7 Jul 2023, at 14:31, denis walker wrote:

> Your principle No 2 "RIPE NCC staff
> expertise is valuable to and welcomed by the RIPE community." cannot
> be a recommended principle. It can be a supporting fact.

Thank you for raising this point, which I want to address first, and consider entirely reasonable.

Unless there is strong feedback from others in the community not to bother, I will work with the other authors to revise the draft accordingly. After that, Mirjam or I will announce a fresh last-call period.

For the rest, please read on.

In the message cited above, denis walker also wrote:

> How RIPE NCC staff talk to the community and the extent to which they
> are involved in community activities has always been an internal
> matter for the RIPE NCC to determine. Historically, different managers
> had different views on how their staff get involved. Now you want to
> formalise it and define this in a RIPE document,

This is a misconception, which seems to inform all of your other comments. The RIPE Community has no business to interpose itself in the internal affairs of the RIPE NCC, whether between NCC and staff or between NCC and members.

What we want to do in this document is to make it clear that, from the community's point of view, RIPE NCC staff members are seen as belonging to our community, rather than apart from it.

I think it may be worth bearing in mind that most of the participants in RIPE are bound by obligations to an employer, and that RIPE NCC staff are no different in this respect. The exceptions include you and me, who no longer bear such obligations, and the RIPE Chair Team, for whom the principles of RIPE-797 apply.

Best regards,

Niall O'Reilly
as co-author of the proposed RIPE document
rather than as RIPE Vice-Chair