Hi Shane, all,
Just re-sending my earlier comments in a clearer format.
Regards
William Sylvester
Chair Accountability Task Force
On 26/10/2018 09:42, Shane Kerr wrote:
Recommendation:
The task force acknowledges the long-standing relationship between the
RIPE community and the RIPE NCC. While there is a lot of goodwill
involved, and an overlap between RIPE NCC members and RIPE community
participants ensures alignment, there are no formalised commitments
from the RIPE NCC to the community. While this has never been a
problem to date, the task force nevertheless wishes to raise this as
something for community to consider.
My comment:
Since RIPE is not a legal entity, any formalized commitments would
have to be done as promises by the RIPE NCC. I believe there is
precedent for this, for example promises to allow other companies
to use patented technology and not be sued (not a contract, still
possibly legally binding). Still, ultimately any such commitment by the
RIPE NCC would have to be unilateral; not an agreement. Enforcement of
any such commitment seems problematic as well, and would have to be
considered.
I think here there's a bit of confusion around our use of the term
"formalised". We weren't thinking of this in a legal sense, but more in
terms of some kind of "official statement" (or statements) from the RIPE
NCC (with whatever caveats need to be included).
Text:
This is why the community consciously developed a separation of powers
between individual working groups, the Working Group Chair Collective,
RIPE Chair, RIPE Programme Committee, and other roles and structures.
My comment:
Was this conscious? The role of the WGCC seems to have evolved over
the years, but I don't remember it ever being considered as a sort of
separation of powers. The PC is even newer, and my recollection is
that its current form was created after Joao Damas had been
single-handedly arranging the plenary (or rather the EOF session) for
years and wanted to give up the task. I think that it was heavily
influenced by the way PCs work in NANOG or other bodies, rather than
for any reason of separating powers within RIPE.
Citation needed. 😉
You've got us here - perhaps we overstated. This is an easy fix if we
remove the "conscious intention" and change it to something like:
"The risk of capture is partly mitigated by a separation of powers
between individual working groups, the Working Group Chair Collective,
..."
(This is just an example - we'll avoid wordsmithing on this list).
Text:
"Also, the RIPE Chair is able to waive the meeting fee for attendees
that have a legitimate need."
My comment:
Technically I believe that the RIPE Chair asks the Managing Director
of the RIPE NCC to waive the meeting fee.
While this is correct, we think the important part is who makes the
decision in the context of the RIPE community.
Perhaps in the future, due to some financial constraint, the RIPE NCC
informs the RIPE Chair that it can afford fewer meeting fees to be
waived. Then it would still be the case that the RIPE Chair makes the
decision about who is eligible to receive this.
Recommendation:
The community might want to consider whether the RIPE Chair should be
required to disclose details about expenses associated with performing
RIPE Chair duties, and who covers these.
My comment:
This is tricky. The RIPE Chair position is unpaid, and not full-time.
Certain RIPE Chair duties may be performed when the Chair is traveling
for other reasons. Personally I think this sort of transparency is
highly desirable, but I am not sure about how practical it is. Perhaps
a conversation with Hans Petter ask his opinion makes sense.
Also note that any such transparency would probably be strictly
voluntary from the RIPE Chair, as there is no obvious enforcement
mechanism and it's not clear how any audit of expenses or other
payments would work.
What we take from this is that it's desirable but perhaps not practical.
We will take a closer look at this with the relevant people.
Text:
One of the RIPE Chair functions is documented as:
"1.7 Decides on content of Friday Plenary at RIPE Meetings"
My comment:
To be clear, the RIPE Chair is responsible for the Closing Plenary.
The RIPE NCC - in co-ordination with other RIRs - is responsible for
the first part, and the RIPE PC is responsible for the second part,
until handing it over to the RIPE Chair. This is a minor detail, and
can be changed since the RIPE Chair also has control of the overall
plan for the meeting.
That's fair and we can update this.
Text:
In the introduction to the Working Group Chair section we have:
"Finally, the task force notes that there is no formal process to
educate new chairs on their role within the community. This does not
need to be anything onerous – but perhaps the RIPE NCC could share a
set of relevant documents, responsibilities and timelines with
newly-selected chairs."
My comment:
It is not clear that the RIPE NCC actually has too much knowledge of
how the Working Groups actually work, or what the Working Group Chairs
do. However, all working groups (except IoT) have multiple co-chairs,
and I believe generally strive to maintain some level of consistency.
We could formalize the idea of new chair training and perhaps the RIPE
NCC can help organize that.
We imagine the RIPE NCC could put together this information in
cooperation with the WG Chairs/RIPE Chair. The RIPE NCC's role here
would be more administrative (maintaining/sharing information) rather
than defining how Working Groups should function.
Section:
6.0 Programme Committee
My comment:
Note that the PC also meets during the RIPE meetings, and also
publishes its minutes.
Noted - we will update this in the final document.
Finally, there may be a couple of missing pieces in the document:
* I think that a missing piece of RIPE the picture in RIPE is any
 description of what RIPE Documents are and how they work. My
 understanding is that anyone can publish a RIPE Document, but I do
not
 see any description of how that is handled anywhere, nor (as the
 report mentions) when a document becomes obsolete. Since these
 documents happen to be where RIPE Policies live, I think this is
 probably important
This is a good point, and it was something that the task force discussed
earlier in our process. A RIPE Document has a little more authority
behind it than, for example, a web page on ripe.net. There are also
differences between RIPE NCC Organisational Documents, RIPE Policies,
and other documents such as task force reports that could use some
explanation.
We will look at putting something together for this.
* BCOP is called a task force, but really I think it is a separate
 thing. It is totally fine, but it is sort of like a working group
and
 sort of like a task force but not really either. It might be
confusing
 and/or seem suspicious if someone is looking at RIPE from an
 accountability point of view. From the point of view of RIPE it's
just
 what seems practical and useful, which is a strength of the way RIPE
 does stuff IMHO.
Appreciate your point - however, as this is currently listed as a Task
Force, we suggest it's best to stick with this definition and leave it
at that.
Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks again for the excellent piece of
work.
Cheers,
-- Shane
