> On 19 Oct 2017, at 09:24, Jim Reid <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 18 Oct 2017, at 23:53, William Sylvester <[email protected]> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 1. Do you think the "public benefit" or "the greater good" is a core 
>> aspirational factor in decisions made by the RIPE community? Alternatively, 
>> are RIPE community members merely working/cooperating for their own benefit? 
>> (If the community is only working for its own benefit, why have a last /8 
>> policy that benefits newcomers, for example).
> 
> Depends. Sometimes "public benefit" can have unintended consequences. It's 
> clear -- or should be clear -- the public benefit aspirations apply to 
> stewardship of numbering resources. [But that is less of a concern now that 
> address policy is essentially a no-op these days.] The aspiration would also 
> apply to some outreach activities requested by the community: for instance 
> engagement with law enforcement, regulators and governments. Obviously it 
> also applies to running K and maintaining the database too. I'm not so sure 
> the "greater good" argument holds up so well for other NCC activities since 
> IMO they should probably be spun out from the NCC.

I find myself mostly agreeing with Jim here but his examples are more 
instantiated but the NCC and haven’t really been brought to the RIPE community. 
Not that I think they would disagree BTW.

>> 2. There is no explicit obligation anywhere that the RIPE NCC will adhere to 
>> policies developed by the RIPE community. Strictly speaking, the RIPE NCC is 
>> accountable to its membership only. Does the community feel that the RIPE 
>> NCC should make a declaration or perhaps sign an MoU stating that it will 
>> follow RIPE community policies?
> 
> This is a very, very silly idea. Sorry.
> 
> 1) Who would/could sign that MoU with the NCC? The RIPE community has no 
> legal identity (by design) so it cannot enter into a contract or any other 
> quasi-legal agreement.
> 
> 2) If a declaration like this was somehow legally enforcable, that will not 
> help if RIPE develops policies which are opposed by the NCC membership or not 
> in the membership's best interest. If we ever get into a scenario like that, 
> a declaration or MoU is not going to make it easier to resolve the conflict. 
> I think it'll make reconciliation harder. There would be endless 
> meta-arguments about what the MoU means or intended rather than fixing the 
> underlying problem. Add lawyers to taste.
> 
> 3) Suppose RIPE develops a policy that instructs Axel to hand out €100 
> banknotes at Centraal  Station until the NCC's reserves are gone. Should he 
> do that just because this hypothetical declaration/MoU obliges him to do it?

+1 on all that Jim has said above! Many others have already said similar things 
and I agree with this.

> There's probably no need to formalise the NCC-RIPE relationship with anything 
> more than a sentence saying "The NCC (Board) will take account of the 
> policies developed by RIPE whenever it deploys and operates services". ie The 
> NCC listens to RIPE but isn't compelled to obey no matter what.

Agreed. But this could be a board resolution.

>> 3. There is no definition of consensus as it is used within the RIPE 
>> community. Is this something that is worth documenting?
> 
> No. The dictionary definition should be enough. Failing that, there's RFC7282.

Yes, and this has been discussed at length before. I would start by evaluating 
if something new has come to light since then.

Best Regards,

- kurtis -
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Kurt Erik Lindqvist, CMO
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