1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ RIPE NCC Contributors Committee September 23rd 1997 Meeting Minutes Scribe: Paula Caslav Document: ripe-169 ABSTRACT Traditionally these minutes reflect the detailed discussions for the benefit of those unable to attend the meeting. Those interested in a very short summary may want to refer to the Appendix listing the decisions. ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 1 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ List of Participants (incomplete): Name Lajos Balint: HUNGARNET Jaroslav Bobovsky: SANET Antonio-Blasco Bonito: CNR Andrea Colangelo: Flashnet S.p.A. Bridget P. Cosgrave: ETSI Klaus Ellegaard: Azlan Scandinavia A/S Alexandre Fasani: GRAPHNET Inc. Gordon Fielden: FireNet Limited Michael Froehlich: Ebone NOC Roberto Gaetano: ETSI Hans Petter Holen: Scandinavia Online AS Dana Hudes: Graphnet Daniel Karrenberg: RIPE NCC Kurt Kayser: VIAG Interkom Dragan Kovacevic: Telekom Srbija Mirjam Kuehne: RIPE NCC Siegfried Langenbach: CSL Klaus Landefeld: Nacamar Maarten E. Linthorst: GoldNet / CSI Communication Systems Inc. AG Erik Lohr: IBM Thierry Louail: COLT Ruben Martinez: RedIRIS Balazs Martos: CSL GmbH Kees Neggers: SURFnet Carol Orange: RIPE NCC Juergen Rauschenbach: DFN-Verein e.V. Paul Ridley: RIPE NCC Marc Roger: BELNET Carsten Schiefner: TCP/IP GmbH Gordana Dubajic Sekulic: "Telekom Srbija" Igor Semenyuk: Sovam Teleport Nick Shield: UKERNA Cliff Stanford: Demon Internet Limited Henk Steenman: AT&T VAS Nigel Titley: British Telecom Michele Trotta: Flashnet S.p.A. Mourad Veeneman: A2000 / Kabeltelevisie Amsterdam Aude Vergult: TRANSPAC Karel Vietsch: TERENA Wim Vink: EUnet Ton Windgassen: IBM Global Services Network Services Wilfried Woeber: VUCC - ACOnet Zoltan Zsido: Westel 900 GSM Mobile Teleco. List of Apologies (incomplete): Peter Villemoes: NORDUNET ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 2 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ 0. Welcome and Preliminaries: Kees Neggers welcomed all attendees. He volunteered to chair the meeting, everybody agreed. The agenda was agreed. 1. RIPE NCC Activity Report: (ripe-144) Mirjam Kuehne and Carol Orange (RIPE NCC) reported. Document: http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-144.html ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-144.txt ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-144.ps Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet- ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/act-rep/ Registration Services Summary: Number of registries growing linearly (1 new LIR per day), therefore the amount of work is still growing. Registration Ser- vices addressed this growth with better internal organisation (deputy manager, better registry han- dler system, better internal documentation), increased automation (reverse delegation is now fully automated, ticketing system has been improved), and hiring more staff. The RIPE NCC is focusing on internal and external quality. During the last year the RIPE NCC did a lot of liaison work, specially related with the set up of the new Regional Internet Registry for the Americas ARIN and the possible new structure of the IANA. Administration Activities Summary: The administra- tive department was specially concerned with prepa- rations for the RIPE NCC association. Much of the administrative work that was previously done at TER- ENA is now being moved to the RIPE NCC. Coordination Activities Summary: Database activity has been growing steadily and rapidly. The engineer- ing department is concentrating on keeping the database stable and providing better documentation for users. The department is planning on working on Routing Registry notification/authorisation imple- mentation, a database consistency project, working with the database security task force and RPSL developments. The department is also continuing work on the Test Traffic Measurement project. ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 3 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Discussion: Growth: Kees Neggers (SURFnet) asked how the RIPE NCC will deal with the growth. Carol Orange answered that there are structural changes to deal with staff growth. For the database growth, the RIPE NCC is looking at the software and will restructure it to deal with growth (present software wasn't originally built for this kind of growth). Kees Neggers asked whether the changes can it be done in time for the growth without causing prob- lems. Carol Orange replied that the RIPE NCC is cur- rently coping with the growth and have a realistic plan to continue doing so. For the database re-engi- neering the RIPE NCC plans to work with consultants to do it more quickly rather than waiting to hire and train new staff. 2. RIPE NCC Activity Plan & Expenditure 1998 Document: http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-162.html ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-162.txt ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-162.ps Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet- ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/coco-act/ Summary: Daniel Karrenberg gave a short overview of the docu- ment highlighting the changes from this year's activities, and the budget for 1998. The NCC expects a growth of 40% in the number of registries for 1998. The RIPE NCC is planning to increase focus on reliability and quality. Discussion: Internal Quality Control: Dana Hudes (Graphnet) asked how the RIPE NCC will measure the improvement of quality? What are the service goals that are targeted? Daniel Karrenberg replied that the measures are being developed at the moment. This is a very difficult thing to do because if you chose the wrong measures, like response time, quality actually goes down. The RIPE NCC has a pro- cess in place to develop measures that are useful- is a request being evaluated properly? what's the ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 4 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ level of complaints? etc.. The measures that they'll choose have to be more deep than just response time. Paul Ridley added that the RIPE NCC will use Euro- pean Foundation for Quality Management Guidelines for Public Sector Model, which focuses on non-profit organisations. They are just starting on this activ- ity, and have started looking at critical success factors and what are the processes that achieve them. The RIPE NCC will publish the results once they're finished. They'll publish the measurements and the results. Growth: Wim Vink (EUnet) asked how the RIPE NCC will cope with the growth, will they have smaller groups internally? Also why such a large growth in adminis- trative department? Daniel Karrenberg answered that the general structure the RIPE NCC has established is sound and can cope with the expected growth. They will refine those structures as necessary. In registration services there is now a deputy manager, in engineering there are smaller groups working on individual projects, however the overall line man- agement will remain same. As for the growth in the administrative department: It is understaffed at the moment, the RIPE NCC is taking over functions that have hitherto been done by TERENA. There are also new activities- Paul Rid- ley will do more content work such as participating in the TLD WG's activities. The RIPE NCC will shortly hire an office manager who will take over day-to day office work from Paul. They also plan to have a training person, who will be responsible for all the organisational aspects of the training courses. In general the NCC is moving the day to day routine work away from the highly paid, qualified people. Database Growth: Igor Semenyuk (Sovam Teleport) commented that the current database growth rate might be a problem soon and asked whether the RIPE NCC is considering dis- tributing the database structure- geographically for example? Daniel Karrenberg replied that both the NCC and the RIPE Database WG have considered and rejected this option for the time being. The database has a notary function for address space allocations and assignments; we have to be sure of ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 5 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ the state at any given point in time and have to be able to query it. If it is distributed there are problems with authority, consistency & availability. That is why we have one central db which is dupli- cated at numerous points for redundancy. IPV6 Activities: Juergen Rauschenbach (DFN) asked whether the RIPE NCC is expecting large growth in IPv6 work in regis- tration services or in the database. Daniel Karren- berg replied that the RIPE NCC has been following the developments for years now. There are two main questions: What are the addressing models that will be accepted? There has been lots of discussion in IETF on this but no real answer to this question. And when will the European ISPs start to provide -pilot- services in this area? The RIPE NCC will start with Ipv6 address space registration services as soon as required by the European ISPs. Euro ISPA Bridget Cosgrave (ETSI) asked what impact will the creation of the Euro ISPA have on RIPE NCC? Daniel Karrenberg answered that as far as he knew, the Euro ISPA is an European ISP Association that is cur- rently being formed on the initiative of some ISPs and the European Commission. If their activities are anything like the ISPA model from the UK it seems to be mainly a lobbying organization; therefore its activities are different from RIPE & the RIPE NCC. At the last meeting it was decided that the RIPE NCC will not engage in lobbying activities because the contributors are concerned that this would endanger the NCC's neutrality and impartiality. Last Year's Budget: Lajos Balint (HUNGARNET) asked whether the budget as agreed upon at the last contributors committee meet- ing still the expenditure for this year. Daniel Kar- renberg answered that last year's initial planning was correct. At the beginning of the year the RIPE NCC expected that they would need more money for an increased level of activities. At present they expect that the expenditure will be very close to the amounts that were budgeted originally, e.g. a total of 1984 kECU. Collection of Debts: ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 6 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Wim Vink asked whether the collection of debts has improved? Paul Ridley replied that collection has improved, the RIPE NCC has taken the last 2 months to focus on credit management; there was 50,000 ECU in debts from earlier years that were formally writ- ten off earlier this year, however the RIPE NCC still follows up on them and stop service if they do not pay. Dana Hudes asked whether if the registry still do not pay the NCC takes address space away? Daniel Karrenberg answered that address space is not leased, address space assignments are valid as long as the original reason for an assignment is still valid. The RIPE NCC does not reclaim address space from end users unless there is a reason to believe that the original criteria for the assignment are no longer valid. You pay for registration services, if you stop paying you get no more services, but the NCC does not take away assigned address space. Starting to do that would would need a global policy change. Mirjam Kuehne added that if the RIPE NCC closes a registry for whatever reason, they take back the unused part of the current allocation, i.e. the addresses not yet handed out to end users. But any assigned address space remains assigned. Wilfried Woeber (ACONET) asked whether the RIPE NCC makes an allocation to a new registry before the money has shown up on the bank account? Daniel Kar- renberg answered that the RIPE NCC follows the gen- eral business practice of assuming that the other party will honour written commitments. Therefore the NCC requires a signed service assignment which constitutes an obligation to pay the service fee. They then start services. The NCC can do that because they mainly deal with companies and not individuals, so usually the NCC can collect the debts. There is a registry set-up procedure that's documented on the web. 3. RIPE NCC Charging Scheme for 1998 Presentation (ripe-163) Paul Ridley Document: http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-163.html ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-163.txt ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-163.ps Slides: ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 7 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ http://www.ripe.net/meet- ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/chg1998/ Daniel Karrenberg summarises: The NCC proposes a 74% increase in expenditure for 1998 over 1997. This budget increase is mainly due to more activities being done and to the introduction of quality man- agement. The number of contributors is expected to grow by only 40% Hence the NCC will have to raise the fees. They propose to use the 1997 charging model raising the sign-up fee back to the level of 1996 because costs for new registries have increased. They also propose to raise the yearly fees roughly equally in all categories. Should the growth of customers be different from the expected, the expenditures will be adjusted accordingly. The yearly fees will be as shown (earlier years for comparison): +-----------------------------------+ | Charge 1998 1997 1996 | +-----------------------------------+ | Yearly SMALL 2450 2200 1500 | |Yearly MEDIUM 3400 3000 4500 | | Yearly LARGE 4500 4000 8500 | | | | Sign-Up 2000 1300 2000 | +-----------------------------------+ Enterprises pay the same fee as a "Small" registry and Supernationals pay n times the "Large" fee. During 1998 the usefulness of these special cate- gories shall be investigated. Discussion: There was no discussion. Wim Vink commented that the fact that there has been no discussion is a confir- mation of the result of last year's work and thor- ough discussions. The RIPE NCC did good job of bal- ancing the various interests & implementing the charging scheme according to last year's discussion. Decision: Both the activity plan (ripe-162) and the charging model (ripe-163) for 1998 are formally agreed without amendments. ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 8 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Discussion of Executive Board Election Procedure At this point there was a short discussion about the election of the executive board later on the agenda: Hans Petter Holen (Scandinavia Online) said that some of the candidates are not here today but have offered to present themselves; should we contact them and ask them to come? Paul Ridley explained that the fact that they are not here has no influ- ence, as they will not be asked to speak about them- selves. Kees Neggers added that you can be a candi- date without having to be here to present yourself, everybody had ample time to present themselves in e- mail. Dana Hudes asked, if candidates have not come to this meeting, how can you guarantee that they will come to other meetings. Paul Ridley explained that this meeting is only open to contributors, however the Executive Board is open to non-contributors. Therefore there are some nominees that were not invited to attend this meeting. If they are elected, they will be able to come to all such meetings in the future. Klaus Landefeld (NACAMAR) asked whether people who are not contributors should be on the board at all? Juergen Rauschenbach asked for an explanation of what the advantage is of having non-contributors on the EB? Kees Neggers said that there will be a presentation of the new structure and if it is agreed upon we will enter into the election & discussion of the procedures. These questions will be answered and discussed later. 4. Report of the "New Structure" Preparations Group (ripe-161) Karel Vietsch (TERENA) presented. Wim Vink, Paul Ridley & Karel Vietsch formed a committee last year to decide on the structure of the new RIPE NCC after it separates from TERENA. Document: http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-161.html ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-161.txt ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-161.ps Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet- ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/de-facto/ ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 9 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Summary: The RIPE NCC will be incorporated as an association and take over the RIPE NCC activities on January 1st 1998. Karel presented the progress in the separa- tion of the RIPE NCC and TERENA. The new association will have a General Assembly (GA) of all the con- tributors, and an Executive Board (EB) of 3-5 elected "natural persons". For the first two years, a TERENA appointed representative will serve on the EB and will have veto power the first year, because if the RIPE NCC association goes bankrupt, TERENA could still be held liable for the first year. There will also have a Treasury Committee that will audit the NCC's financial accounts. Discussion: Dutch Tax Laws: Dana Hudes asked why are Dutch laws giving the NCC a problem, can't they pick any other European country and set up the official organisation there? Karel Vietsch explained that the Dutch tax laws are not giving the NCC a problem, this will be explained in a later presentation. TERENA member on Executive Board: Cliff Stanford (Demon) asked why TERENA gets a seat on the Executive Board. Karel Vietsch explained that there will be liability for TERENA even after the separation, if the new organization goes bankrupt within the first year, TERENA can go bankrupt as well. TERENA will have one member for two years, and will have veto rights for any decisions that will affect TERENA for one year. Wim Vink commented that it should be specified what TERENA can and can't do. Karel Vietsch explained that it will only apply to decisions that could lead to financial consequences for TERENA. Wim Vink com- mented that the activity plan has been agreed upon therefore there should not be any expenditures that will cause problem for TERENA. Karel Vietsch explained that there could be things that come up that are not in the activity plan, for example mov- ing to new office. Decisions have to be made about things not in activity plan. Wilfried Woeber added that there is also a require- ment that any execution of the veto has to be publi- cally documented and will be known to the General ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 10 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Assembly with reason why. Daniel Karrenberg explained that limiting the veto right formally was discussed with legal advisors; they advised that it is difficult if not impossible to circumscribe a qualified veto right. There could be endless con- flict about it. Therefore the intention of the veto right is formally documented and a public justifica- tion is required when using it. If the veto is used, the public will know about it. That is the best protection. Cliff Stanford asked whether the General Assembly will have the right to remove the TERENA member. Karel Vietsch answered that they will, but TERENA will be able to replace the person Gordon Fielden asked whether if there's a decision made and TERENA vetoes it, the General Assembly will have right to overturn it. Karel Vietsch answered that the veto only exists to protect TERENA from liabilities, if the General Assembly would decide to do something extreme that would cause TERENA to go bankrupt, TERENA would still want to veto it without being overturned. Lajos Balint commented that this discussion is purely academic, the General Assembly can remove the part about having a TERENA member on the Executive Board. Hans Petter Holen commented that TERENA to achieve a certain goal is using the wrong mechanism, what TER- ENA should do is make a formal agreement with the new organization to ensure its financial security. Karel Vietsch answered that he would welcome alter- native proposals. What Hans Petter Holen is propos- ing is no protection at all. If this organization goes bankrupt, TERENA will have no recourse but some debtors like the employees may hold TERENA liable. Kees Neggers explained that one of the first things the new organisation will do is sign a contract with TERENA. But during the time that TERENA really has liabilities, TERENA needs some involvement. The only thing TERENA wants is a good, powerful RIPE NCC, they want to have a healthy future. Kurt Kaiser asked, whether, since it is a split, and there's a Dutch law about liability, would RIPE NCC be liable for TERENA if TERENA goes bankrupt? Karel Vietsch answered that no, liability is only from the TERENA side because TERENA is the existing organiza- tion, RIPE NCC is the new organisation that is ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 11 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ splitting off. RNA membership at the beginning of setup: Igor Semenyuk asked about the fact that the RNA will have zero members on day 1. Can a legal organisation can't exist without members? Karel Vietsch answered that at some point somebody will go to notary for- mally establish the association at that point the association will have zero members, but after it's officially set up, the present contributors can start signing contracts and become official members. Paul Ridley added that you can have an open organi- zation, decisions that cannot be made without the General Assembly but decisions made by Executive Board can be made because the Executive Board will be in place from the beginning. Igor Semenyuk asked whether the contributors can elect an Executive Board now without being members of the RNA? Paul Ridley explained that legally, that's not a problem. Need for a quorum: Klaus Landefeld asked whether there is any legal aspect in Dutch law about needing a quorum to vote in a General Assembly? Karel Vietsch answered that there is not. So it is completely up to us what we write into the laws of the new organization. Klaus Landefeld asked of the contributors what they want to decide on this. Kees Neggers commented that if you look at today's meeting, which is more impor- tant than previous meetings, there is only a small percentage present (less than 5 %). This is not likely to improve in the future. Karel Vietsch com- mented that if you have good discussion on the mail- ing lists and reach consensus electronically, it does not matter how many people show up at the meet- ings. In principle there is nothing wrong with hav- ing entirely electronic discussions. Cliff Stanford asked whether proxy voting will be allowed at the meeting. Karel Vietsch answered that this is not mentioned in in the proposal explicitly; It is open to discussion Appeals procedure: ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 12 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Gordon Fielden asked whether there is an appeals procedure. Daniel Karrenberg answered that the Exec- utive Board should not be the appeals board, there could be conflicts of interest. What the Executive Board should do is put the right procedures in place. Two months ago he circulated a proposal to start discussion on this. The proposal is for the General Assembly to decide on the appeal procces. One might have a pool of arbitrators approved by the General Assembly, when there is a conflict, each party would choose an arbiter from the pool and the two arbiters would choose a third. He has only got 2 private reactions to the e-mail, there was no public discussion. Dana Hudes commented that the proposed structure is great idea, this is a structure that has been tried and has worked in the past. This idea is thousands of years old and it works. Gordon Fielden commented that there needs to be an appeals process from the beginning, not set it up later. Daniel Karrenberg answered that the NCC as been operating for 5 years and nobody has taken them to court, that is the appeals process now. All the conflicts they've had could be resolved. He agrees that it is an important matter, but it is not a pre- requisite for proceeding. There was not much response to his earlier proposal. Kees Neggers commented that the appeals procedure today is to go to TERENA. That has not happened so far. The appeals power should be in a formal proce- dure. If the contributors elect an Executive Board today, they should do two things: Set up the new organisation and set up an appeals procedure. Paul Ridley answered that the first proper General Assem- bly meeting could approve or amend any procedures that are put in place before that time by the Execu- tive Board. Kees Neggers added that when we start the associa- tion and everybody signs a contract there needs to be an appeals process already in place. By signing the agreement, the contributors are agreeing to the appeals procedure. Dana Hudes commented that in the US they are start- ing to see ISPs that start litigation if they do not get their way. The appeals process should be manda- tory and part of service agreement. Kees Neggers agreed and said that that's why the process needs to be defined quickly. ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 13 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ 4 b. Financial Separation of TERENA & RNA (ripe-164) Presentation: Paul Ridley Document: http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-164.html ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-164.txt ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-164.ps Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet- ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/fin-sep/ 4c. Paul Ridley presentation: RNA tax position (ripe-165) Presentation: Paul Ridley Document: http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-165.html ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-165.txt ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-165.ps Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet- ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/taxposition/ Summary: The two presentations covered the financial consequences for the split and the tax agreements that have been arranged with the Dutch tax authori- ties for the new RIPE NCC association. No taxes will have to be paid for transferring the money from the TERENA bank accounts to the RIPE NCC accounts. It has also been agreed that the new RIPE NCC will not have to pay any company tax. The RIPE NCC will also have a personnel fund to pay employees' salaries for an x number of month in case of finan- cial problems. The NCC will not pay any tax on the personnel fund. Discussion: Personnel Fund: Gordon Fielden asked why a personnel is fund neces- sary. Isn't there some protection in the Dutch law to help employees if an organization goes bankrupt? Paul Ridley explained that the court may say that a person can get several months worth of salary, but if the company is bankrupt, the employees still get nothing. The employees are not necessary the first creditors. Kees Neggers commented that it's necessary to have protection that if the company is at risk, staff ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 14 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ does not decide to go away and find another job. This is to avoid people looking for another job because they feel unsafe. Daniel Karrenberg added that the NCC is not in the job of producing any- thing. The NCC's job security depends on Internet governance, if it is decided that the work the NCC is doing should be done another way, the NCC will have to stop its work, but there will probably be a period of several months for the transition. Gordon Fielden commented that there should be a limit to how far the reserves can go. Paul Ridley replied that there is a limit. There is a formula of x number of months salary for x number of employees; the x months is open to negotiation. The Executive Board can discuss this with the tax authorities. General Comments: Kees Neggers commented that the committee did a good job preparing the new structure There was agreement among contributors on this. Kees Neggers also added that the RIPE NCC also did a good job, we should thank the management & staff for their work. There was also agreement among contributors on this. 5. Decisions about setting up of RIPE NCC Association Kees Neggers said that decisions about setting up a RIPE NCC Association need to be made now. The pro- posal is to set it up according to the structure described in ripe-161, any major proposals for changes? Gordon Fielden asked whether the contributors can decide on a temporary appeals procedure before vot- ing on the new structure. Kees Neggers replied that the proposal is to agree on the setting up the RNA, TERENA will do the legal work and the Executive Board will work with TERENA to implement the structure, that Executive Board will start working this afternoon. It is a substan- tial amount of work, so if there are no amendments, does everyone agree that the RIPE NCC will be incor- porated according to structure? Decision: The de-facto structure for the RIPE NCC Association is agreed as proposed (ripe-161). TERENA is asked proceed with formal incorporation of RNA based on this structure. ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 15 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Decision: The RNA executive is asked to define conflict arbitration procedure as soon as possible and before Jan 1st 1998. Decision: TERENA and the RNA executive committee are asked to implement a smooth transition of RIPE NCC services from TER- ENA to RNA based on the principles set down in the tax position document (ripe-165) and the financial separation document (ripe-164). 6. Election of first RIPE NCC Executive Board members Kees Neggers announced that there is a full consen- sus that the new RIPE NCC Association will be struc- tured as agreed. Anything not implicitly said here at the meeting will be up to the Executive Board to decide on, TERENA will only listen. TERENA has decided to choose Kees Neggers to be the TERENA appointed member of the EB. Four additional members need to be elected. Two will be elected for 3 year terms and two for 1 year terms. Kees Neggers' mandate is for a two year term. Everybody agrees to the voting proposal? There was general agreement. Election itself: Proposal is to elect the board mem- bers 1 by one, starting with members for 3 year term. Comment: Gordon Fielden commented that that EB members should only be contributors. Kees Neggers replied that the proposal now is that any person can be a candidate, it is up to the vot- ers to decide whether somebody is qualified. If you make it mandatory that the person should be a con- tributor that is a change to the procedure. Daniel Karrenberg added that he strongly feels that it is better not to limit eligibility to the EB. There will always be a number of people who are widely respected and could make a good contribution to the Executive Board even though they might not be working for a contributor. at the time of the elec- tion. It's not a good thing to exclude in the by- laws somebody from serving just because they are not ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 16 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ a contributor. General Assembly members should vote on the people concerned and not on the principle. Dana Hudes commented that there are outstanding mem- bers of the community that could be on the Executive Board but it should be that the contributors should have representation, there should be a limit of how many seats can be filled by non contributors Wilfried Woeber replied that the contributors should be aware that if they want to have formal con- straints that somebody should be a contributor's employee then they will have to have a lengthy pro- cess. What if the representative is no longer employed by a contributor? Will the person have to resign? etc. The rules should be flexible and effi- cient. Klaus Landefeld added that usually board members should be named as person, not as organization, but it is unusual for Executive Board members not to be part of the association at all. Hans Petter Holen replied that it is too late to change this now. However, if it is decided that EB members have to work for a contributor, he would be happy to for- mally employ the people who have been nominated. Paul Ridley added that only members are allowed to vote, if the majority of the members decide to vote for only contributors, they can do that, but why exclude the option of having non-members if the Gen- eral Assembly decides to vote for them? Siegfried Langenbach (CSL) asked for a clarification on which non-contributors have been nominated. Kees Neggers answered that they are Keith Mitchell & Frode Greisen. Wim Vink suggested a vote on the subject. Gordon Fielden proposed the amendment that only con- tributors be eligible to the EB. 4 votes for, all others against. The motion is dis- missed. Dana Hudes proposed the amendment that at least 2 Executive Board members out of 5 members are working for contributors. 2 votes for, 1 abstention, all others against. The motion is dismissed. ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 17 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Nominees: Antonio Blasco Bonito, IT CNR Frode Greisen, DK EBONE Klaus Landefeld, DE NACAMAR Keith Mitchell, UK LINX Cliff Stanford, UK DEMON Martin Starnberger, LT TAIDE Wim Vink NL EUNET, Wilfried Woeber, AT ACONET The elections were conducted as follows. +---------------------------+ | First 3 Year Position | +---------------------------+ |Antonio Blasco Bonito 1 | |Klaus Landefeld 2 | |Cliff Stanford 3 | |Wilfried Woeber 4 | |Frode Greisen 5 | |Keith Mitchell 7 | |Wim Vink 7 | +---------------------------+ +--------------------+ | Run Off Round | +--------------------+ |Wim Vink 10 | |Keith Mitchell 17 | +--------------------+ Keith Mitchell was elected for a three year term. +-------------------------+ |Second 3 Year Position | +-------------------------+ |Klaus Landefeld 2 | |Cliff Stanford 3 | |Wilfried Woeber 7 | |Wim Vink 7 | |Frode Greisen 8 | +-------------------------+ ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 18 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Frode Greisen was elected for a three year term. +---------------------------+ | First 1 Year Position | +---------------------------+ |Antonio Blasco Bonito 3 | |Klaus Landefeld 3 | |Cliff Stanford 5 | |Wim Vink 7 | |Wilfried Woeber 9 | +---------------------------+ Wilfried Woeber was elected for a one year term. +---------------------------+ | Second 1 Year Position | |Antonio Blasco Bonito 4 | |Klaus Landefeld 6 | |Cliff Stanford 7 | |Wim Vink 10 | +---------------------------+ Wim Vink was elected for a one year term. All those elected accepted their election. Closing There being no further business the meeting was closed. ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 19 1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes Paula Caslav Preliminary Draft ____________________________________________________ Appendix: Decisions of the Meeting The RIPE NCC Activity Plan for 1998 (ripe-162 ) is approved without amendments. RIPE NCC Charging Scheme for 1998 (ripe-163) is approved without amendments. The de-facto structure for the RIPE NCC Association is agreed as proposed (ripe-161). TERENA is asked proceed with formal incorporation of RNA based on this structure. without amendments. The RNA executive board is asked to define conflict arbitration procedure as soon as possible and before Jan 1st 1998. TERENA and the RNA executive committee are asked to implement a smooth transition of RIPE NCC services from TERENA to RNA based on the principles set down in the tax position document (ripe-165) and the financial separation document (ripe-164). Executive board elections: Keith Mitchell was elected for a three year term. Frode Greisen was elected for a three year term. Wilfried Woeber was elected for a one year term. Wim Vink was elected for a one year term. ____________________________________________________ ripe-169.txt Page 20