Introduction
If we look at different RIRs, we can see that RIPE NCC is unique in many ways. RIPE NCC is the only RIR that invested significant amount of resources in additional tools and services, that are not directly related to registry management, and that are not required by policy. But as everything, each initiative have downsides, and upsides. We need to evaluate all these initiatives and see if in some cases we need to change something, or in worst cases, to stop some initiatives.
Common problems
There are several common problems that need to be solved:
RIPE NCC funding use
One of big concerns is that RIPE NCC is funded by membership fees, and traditionally such money used for solely registry management. Certain amount of funds traditionally used for community projects, but in recent years, RIPE NCC started to invest significant amount of resources in additional tools and services, that are not directly related to registry management. Major issue with all non-profit membership organizations is that they expect targeted use of funds, and if they see that funds are used for something that is not directly related to their interests, they might start to question the value of membership. Adding on top that membership in RIPE is not voluntary for those holding resources managed by RIR, and that RIPE NCC is the only choice, this might initiate very unfortunate sequence of events in case of dissatisfaction of members.
Value of projects for RIPE NCC members
While many projects are done for “common good”, and are available for free for whole world, we need to evaluate if they provide enough value for RIPE NCC members, and if they are worth the costs. We have fundamental projects like RIPE Atlas, but ISPs cannot utilize it for his automated monitoring purposes as he will run out of credits. Or we have RIS-Live service, which is used worldwide, but tools that provide at least some value developed by private entities from ARIN region, like BGPalerter.
Language translations of RIPE materials, articles, and news, software, and RIPE tools
Most of RIPE materials are in English, and this is a problem for non-English speaking countries. We need to translate all materials, articles, and news, software, and RIPE tools to all languages, and provide them to community. Due budget constraints, we can do it gradually, in community-driven way, and prioritize languages by demand.
Services to review:
Feel free to suggest more services.
Services and tools information spreading
Spreading information about RIPE non-core services, and tools, and how they can be useful for RIPE members. This is very important, as most of RIPE members are not aware about all services, and tools that RIPE NCC provides, and how they can serve as sort of investment return.
Commercial abuse
There are some cases of commercial abuse of RIPE NCC services, and tools, and we need to solve this problem, and prevent it in future. For example RIPE Atlas is sponsored by memberships fees, available for free for whole world, but some companies (often even non-RIPE members) are using it for commercial purposes, and worse, reselling it. We need to prevent such cases, and make sure that RIPE Atlas available in reasonable limits for RIPE members, on-demand for academic institutions, in limited way for non-RIPE members (that wont put strain on infrastructure), and for commercial purposes - for a fee.
Limiting scope of services
Some services provide enormous amount of historical and/or operational data, that are rarely needed by majority of RIPE members, and we need to evaluate if we need to limit amount of data we store and process. We might need to introduce some fees for accessing historical data, or limit amount of data that can be accessed for free.
Project transparency
We need to provide more transparency about how RIPE NCC budget is spent on such projects, and services, and how much resources are allocated to each project. Also, as most of projects are member-funded, we need to discuss that they should be opensource and community-driven, following best practices of open-source projects, such as transparent development, and decision-making, and open for contributions.
Active investigations
We are currently investigating projects: