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32nd RIPE Meeting

Plenary Session Minutes

DRAFT

                                RIPE 32
                Amsterdam, 27, 28 and 29 January 1999
                            Plenary Session 


   Chair: Rob Blokzijl
   Scribe: Naomi de Bruyn


         1. Opening

         2. Agenda

         3. Minutes RIPE 31

         4. From the Chair (Rob Blokzijl)

         5. Report from the RIPE NCC (Mirjam Kuehne)

         6. ICANN

            a. current status (E. Dyson, interim chairperson of the
	       initial ICANN board)
            b. progress with the address supporting organisation 
               (ASO) (K. Mitchell, chairman RIPE NCC board)
            c. questions & discussion
            d. conclusions & next steps

	 7. Presentation Bob Aiken

	 8. Presentation Ran Atkinson

         9. Working group reports

        10. Next meetings

        11. AOB

        12. Close



 - 1. - Opening

	RIPE chair Rob Blokzijl welcomed everyone to the 32nd RIPE meeting.
	The plenary session was split into two parts, the first part took place
	on Wednesday afternoon, the second part on Friday morning.

	Rob expressed that he was honored and pleased to have Esther Dyson 
	with us, interim chairman of the initial ICANN board. Presented would 
	be status reports on the progress of ICANN and discussed would be the 
	role RIPE NCC plays in forming the address supporting organisation
	(ASO).

 - 2. - Agenda

	The agenda was approved.

 - 3. - Minutes Plenary Session RIPE 31

	The minutes of the plenary session were circulated twice. 
	The minutes were approved.

 - 4. - From the chair

	Rob Blokzijl presented a graph on RIPE meeting attendees. The first 
	RIPE meeting took place 10 years ago this year. It used to be a 14 
	attendees meeting of half a day. During the last meeting in Edinburgh 
	200 + attendees took part. Two thirds of the attendees have a 
	commercial background. Rob is not sure whether this is good or bad. 
	One of these days we should discuss how to improve our current way 
	of working. 

	Lots of receptions shall take place this meeting, all sponsored. RIPE
	had been approached by some companies who were interested in 
	sponsoring the RIPE meeting. After some discussion, it was decided 
	that it was probably better if the registration fee for the meeting 
	stays on the level where it covers the meeting costs. We definitely 
	do not want to turn the RIPE meeting into a commercial gathering.

	However, the social things are now being sponsored. 

	Keith Mitchell, chairman of the board of the RIPE NCC, had an 
	announcement to make. At the end of last year elections took place 
	for members of the executive board. Wilfried Woeber retired, his place
	was taken by Mike Norris. On behalf of the board Keith thanked 
	Wilfried. His input to re-structuring the NCC was very important.

 - 5. - Reports from the RIPE NCC (Mirjam Kuehne)

	Some additional remarks to the presentation which can be found at:

http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-32/presentations/index.html

- Statistics

	Member sizes have shifted to MEDIUM sized members compared to the
	figures that were shown last time. Although the NCC is usually quite 
	good at projecting the number of registries, we have more MEDIUMs 
	than expected this time. This could be due to the fact that a 
	significant part of SMALL registries are becoming MEDIUM sized.

	Financially: our debtors have had some problems getting money to us
	previously, however the situation is now improving.
	This year will be the first time we have to take action and take 
	services away. We will stop providing reverse delegation to and close 
	the registries we haven't heard from in a long time.

	We have asked registries to sign a new agreement. More than 200 
	registries, however still have to sign. We have sent several reminders
	but will at some point have to react in a similar way as to people 
	that don't pay. 

	- Services

	We have had some problems with our mail robots which are now resolved.
	The overall average waiting time is the same.

	First version of the IP request syntax checking form was presented 
	in the Local IR working group and can now also be found on our 
	website. The NCC would be happy to receive comments and suggestions.

http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/web141/web141.pl.cgi

	Ipv6: we have been working with RIRs on a policy proposal document. 
	Everyone's invited to join the discussions on the IPv6 mailinglist.


 - 6. - ICANN

	A) Current status (Esther Dyson, interim chairperson of the initial
	   ICANN board)

	Rob Blokzijl introduced Esther Dyson. ICANN, or the new IANA has been 
	a discussion point in the past RIPE meetings. In the past there was 
	IANA, the late Jon Postell and his crew kept track of crucial items to 
	ensure proper use of the Internet. That worked in the good old days 
	when the Internet was small. For various reasons in the last two or 
	three years people have been discussing if this role, on the one hand, 
	can be formalized a bit more. And, on the other hand, to investigate 
	whether all the interests of the industry were covered properly. 
	It's been a long process and a possible new solution is ICANN 
	(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

	The various drafts of statutes and bylaws of this organization have
	been discussed in the past 12 months. 

	Rob noted that for organizations like the RIPE NCC, who had been 
	invited together with the other RIRs to define their role in this 
	environment, it has not been very easy, because the target kept 
	moving. 

	The ICANN corporation consists of two parts. The board of directors 
	(18 members) reflect the two parts of ICANN. 

	9 members come from the traditional internet sphere (names, numbers,
	IETF) each will have a mechanism in place to appoint/nominate 3 
	directors each to the board.

	The other 9 come from a whole new sphere: the at large members, they 
	are supposed to give fair respresentation of the whole internet 
	industry and the Internet at large.

	Esther Dyson began her talk by stating that she felt a bit awkward, 
	she wasn't sure what would be interesting for the RIPE meeting 
	participants to hear about. Because there is so much going on, so 
	she tried to focuss on the things that were immediately relevant.
	She reminded us that she couldn't speak for the board itself. She 
	could only openly talk about her own opinions. 

	The board does not want to interfere or re-design things that already 
	work well now. What the RIPE community is doing seems to be working 
	and ICANN does not see any reason to wreck and force us into doing 
	things we don't want to do. ICANN is trying to build a structure that
	takes its ideas from the bottom up rather then making decisions 
	blindely and then imposing them. Most of the people on the board 
	feel that way.

	The current version of bylaws that is being worked on now has 
	some things that need to be changed, especially vis-a-vis the at large
	membership. The board is trying to work within those bylaws. It does 
	not want to build something so rigid that it cannot adjust to changing 
	reality. It also does not want to build something so flimsy that our 
	subjects will pass by quickly. 

	As far as the ASO is concerned, the board wants the RIRs to come up 
	with something that works among themselves and then propose it the 
	board. The RIRs represent a consensus of the technical community 
	concerned with addresses on what we want to propose to the ICANN board
	when such things need to be proposed. We all want to have a minimum of
	bureaucracy and a minimum of complexity. And we want a maximum of 
	common sense and good will. 

	The RIRs have to come together and define an ASO that will work for 
	everybody involved. For the record; there is no specific requirement 
	for an at large membership of the ASO in the way that there is an at 
	large membership of ICANN.

	The board is concerned that questions and objections from the outside 
	world are answered and delt with fairly. But, they are not trying to 
	define the structure for us. We are an address organization, not a 
	world wide organization that has to deal with lots of other issues. 
	We have to be open to people that have vested interests in the 
	address business but we do not have to be open to people that have 
	vested interest in content control or general issues of privacy etc.

	The board is trying to define the area in which we operate. Our 3 
	board members are concerned with general issues that come up to ICANN. 
	The goal also is to see that decisions are not made blindly by the 
	ICANN board without understanding what is involved. That's why they 
	have this bottom-up notion of consensus.

	Technical proposals by the ASO are expected to be made in an open and 
	transparant process and are to be posted for a month, for fair public 
	comments. This is the point where the whole at large membership comes 
	in. Noone should come and force us to do something that technically is 
	stupid. The ICANN interest is to have the internet continue to operate
	effectively in the way that it does.

	We have to be sure that the technical community from intelligent/
	coherent enough input can persuade people that what we want to do 
	technically make sense.

 - b. - Progress with the address supporting organisation (ASO)
        (Keith Mitchell, Chairman RIPE NCC board)

	RIPE NCC progress towards an ICANN address supporting organisation.

	Keith found this a unique moment where all of us were present and 
	able to discuss things. A number of board meetings and phone 
	conferences have taken/will take place before the proposal is put 
	forward.

	Principles behind the NCC's involvement in this: we want to ensure the 
	success of ICANN. IANA has kept us supported very well throughout 
	its existence. ICANN is clearly the only show in town. We want to be 
	part only of success and not of failure. The changes that will bring 
	the internet in a more formal, more legally recognizable format are 
	necessary. 

	We want to protect the European interest and want to make sure that 
	the unique voice of the greater European community that is RIPE, is 
	looked after and that no other region is in a position of undue 
	influence on ICANN and the Internet as a whole. We also want to make 
	sure that any structure that is created does not cause the addressing 
	area to be side-lined. 

	Quite a lot of work has been done together with APNIC and ARING. A 
	lot of progress was made during the Geneva meeting in July. There 
	is no consensus yet to make a common proposal, but we hope to reach 
	that soon. 

	One of the major sticky points in getting out this proposal is a
	slight difference between the RIRs. The ICANN process needs at large 
	representation, we believe that the existing RIPE mechanism provides 
	an adequate oversight over RIPE NCC, at least in the European area. 
	We address most if not all requirements for at large represenation 
	and for open and transparent processes, as far as where the address
	supporting organization is concerned 

	The other two current RIRs do not have open mechanisms in place that 
	are quite comparable to RIPE. We have the benefit of a long standing 
	tradition of transparencey and openness. We will have to work with the
	other RIRs on an ASO structure that builds on our tradition for Europe
	while catering to the situations in other parts of the world. That is 
	the current challenge

	Another outstanding issue is that there are some changes between the 
	version 5 and version 6 bylaws which limited the voting rights of the 
	supporting organization, vis-a-vis the at large membership. Reason is 
	to stop ICANN becoming captive to particular vested interests. 
	We thought there was some other way of doing this. This is not a good 
	time to try and get this changed, if pushed too hard it's not likely 
	to be contributing to the overall good. We have discussed this with
	ICANN and have agreed to have a difference of opion about it.

	One of the messages Keith would like to point out is that there 
	should not be any more suprises. He does not think we will see any 
	more major adjustments. It's more about having a transparent, gradual 
	and open process with regards to changes to the current version of 
	the bylaws.

	There is a deadline on the 5th of February to submit a proposal for 
	supporting organizations. We are not going to achieve that. We want
	to get some key members, possibly the chief executives of the 
	registries as well, together and thrash out the remaining issues. When 
	we are happy that we have consensus, the proposal will be published
	for open debate and consultation. A new mailinglist will be created 
	separate from the local-ir list for this purpose. We are optimistic 
	that we can put the ASO together in a proper footing but there still 
	is some work to be done. We are hoping for good input from the 
	community.

	Rob noted the following: at some point in the process we will have a 
	document that should be submitted to the ICANN board. The ICANN board 
	has a next meeting somewhere in the beginning of March. The proposal 
	has to be submitted before the 5th of February, however this doesn't 
	mean that this is the last chance to submit. The next ICANN meeting 
	will take place at the end of May, so the next deadline is end of 
	April. 

	Keith continued: Is the address allocation process now in limbo? 
	This is not the case! IANA is still functioning for now like it always
	did. For the intermediate future funding has also been secured. 
	Everything is currently working as usual until ICANN is properly set 
	up. We have to work hard to get this proposal ready for the address 
	support organization and we need input from the community. Those of 
	the people that were not in the room during the RIPE meeting will have
	the opportunity to read the slides and the minutes, these will be 
	published on the mailinglist.

http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-32/presentations/

 - c. - Questions & discussion

	The chair welcomed Christopher Wilkinson from the European Commission 
	in Brussels. He was invited to give the point of view of the 
	Commission.

	Christopher started by wishing Esther and the other ICANN board 
	members, present and future, every success in the development of 
	ICANN. He is grateful to the leadership of RIPE NCC and to CENTR for 
	the work they have put in on these matters, together with the private 
	sector in the panel of participants in the intervening months. 

	We have made some significant steps forward. Important: there is no 
	risk of European interest being marginalized in this affair. The 
	commission has been monitoring this process carefully but fairly 
	passively. It is a matter of consensus building within the Internet 
	community and the private sector operators and users of the Internet 
	in the respective sectors which we have heard so much about. 
	Christopher mentioned a few chapter headings of specific public policy
	interests.

	- The general principle of balance is representative international 
	  participation. 
	- The respect of internet management for the applicability
	  of laws other than US jurisdiction should the need arise. 
	These are relevant to various trademarks competition privacy laws. 

	Christopher was glad to report that the bylaws version as published 
	on 23rd November 1998 is okay. They have been read/approved by the 
	highest legal EU authorities.

	The ICANN bylaws provide for advisory committees. The membership 
	advisory committee is already working, there are two or three 
	European members there. 

	The Root server Advisory committee is an important component of the 
	long term stability of the route. The European commission has nothing 
	to do with root servers as such, therefore they observe this with a 
	certain detachment. 

	Christopher then talked about the Governmental Advisory Committee.
	There are Public policy interests in the stability and development of 
	the internet. It has be recognized, it is not a one-off.

	The commission has taken very seriously the proposal to create a 
	governmental advisory committee. They, and member states are 
	discussing how they think it should be structured and how they should 
	participate . They had another discussion about this in Brussels the 
	day after the plenary session. 

	The general idea is that the interests of efficiency the 
	governmental committee will be small. It will be structured on a 
	regional basis and the global regions will sort out internally the 
	way in which 5 or 6 members will be designated perhaps in rotating
	basis to represent their points of view in this committee.

	Perhaps in contrast to some of the opinions in the US, in Europe it 
	was felt from the beginning that the international organizations have 
	a legitimate interest in the field. For different reasons, most 
	obvious ones are the ITU: where there is a major development country 
	link and a significant link regarding technical standards. The IETF 
	has a cooperation agreement with the ITU; the world intellectual 
	property organization, which looks likes it is going to emerge as a 
	significant forum for dispute resolution and in particulary for 
	helping the domain name system to avoid unnecessary trademark 
	conflicts.

	Christopher believes that our public authorities have taken a 
	legitimate interest, have exercised it responsibly and
	have reached agreement with US governement and with the ICANN board 
	on a number of critical points. The atmosphere and the legal and 
	political framework is well set now for a successful devlopment in 
	the coming years.

	Rob noted that the Commission and governments are very active in 
	defining their role in the other part of ICANN, the membership at 
	large. With specific interest in the domain name system. He wanted to 
	know if they have any thoughts on/or interest in the ASO.

	Christopher stated that he is not the only player in this affair. 
	There are 15 governments and several other departments in the 
	Commission including, the internal market and the competition and the 
	legal parts of the Commission are very interested in the way this 
	evolves. 

	The ECs primary objective is to ensure that a workable consensus 
	emerges. Within that framework there is a wide range in each 
	situation of acceptable solutions. Provided they also fulfill the 
	general criteria of international representation and the applicability 
	of international laws should the need arise. Christopher wanted to
	make a footnote: he has tried to remain agnostic about the 
	incorporation of supporting organizations because he knows it is a 
	legitimate source of discussion within the private sector. He is 
	increasingly of the view personally that it is more difficult to 
	guarantee the regional international representation and the
	applicability of international laws through three more separate 
	organizations. It would be easier to rely on the structure and 
	political agreements that have been reached within the ICANN 
	framework. Regarding individual membership, it wasn't actually their 
	idea they assumed that the membership structure would be through 
	associations through entity corporations and other collective 
	bodies. 

	There is a very reasonable case being made in the US for individual 
	memberhsip of ICANN, but Christopher is not convinced that the same 
	argument is equally strong as applied to each of the supporting orgs. 
	But individual membership has to be large enough and geographically 
	well distributed enough to continue to sustain the diversity of 
	geographic representation that we have sought. 

	The major stakeholder/constituency that we have identified, that so 
	far is not fully incorporated in the membership structures, are the 
	public services. From museums to schools, from hospitals to local 
	authorities from public services who will conduct electronic commerce 
	with their customers in the general public, to the availability of 
	governmental information on public websites.

	This is a big constituancy, a big group of stakeholders. 
	And the public services are putting a lot of money into developing 
	their webpages acquiring internet connectivity and encouraging members
	customers and users to enter the internet enthusiastically.
	There are for example projects to put the whole European museum and
	art gallery content online, accessable to the general public through 
	the internet. There are copyright and protection issues which are being
	resolved in that process.

	Chrisopher thinks we need a public services user constituency 
	in addition to the general structure that has emerged to date.

	Erik Huizer (member of Internet Architecture Board, IAB and 
	chairman of the IETF WG that is working on the Protocol Supporting
	Organization) 

	He asked Christopher what role the ITU-T should play in his
	vision. Does he think that the ITU-T should have an equal role in the 
	PSO with regards to the IETF?

	Christopher replied that what he was referring to explicitly, was 
	that the ITU would be a member of the governmental advisory committee.

	In Minneapolis a few weeks ago at the ITU annuanal conference, its 
	members adopted a resolution which instructed the secretary general 
	of the ITU to make sure that the organization and its members were 
	associated with the developing framework of internet governence.

	On the specific issue of the links between PSO and non-IETF 
	standardization interests, Christopher continued to say that there 
	are other people both in the IETF and ITU who can sort this out. He 
	stated that the last thing the commission wants is to have to 
	arbitrate a dispute, particularly in that kind of area.

	Erik Huizer (as chair of poisson working group IETF) noted that the 
	working group is discussing what the IETF role should be with regards 
	to ICANN. If they should participate in the protocal standard 
	organization and how the bylaws of this PSO should be and what should 
	be in there, such that the IETF can commit to participating in there.  

	One of the problems that the working group runs into is that some 
	people think that IETF should be part of the Protocol Support 
	Association. However others think that some other organizations 
	should be let in as well.
	
	Another discussion point is: should the IETF have it's parameter
	registration assigned to ICANN which now is done by IANA. 
	The consensus is (in the poisson WG) that they don't want ICANN to 
	register these parameters. They want to keep them out of this and 
	will seperately from IETF give a contract to an organization 
	to register these parameters (ISI)

	Another question is what to do with IPv6 addresses. IPv4 is a done
	deal, this has to go to ICANN. The poisson WG are less comfortable 
	with giving IPv6 to ICANN as well. At the moment it is still not clear
	where we're headed with the assignment of IPv6 addresses.
	This has been pointed out in lots of discussion for example in the 
	IPv6 working group. 

	Erik asked for the thoughts of the people present in the plenary 
	session. Did they think the IPv6 addresses should be moved directly 
	with IPv4 to ICANN, or should they be kept out of ICANN at first and 
	get comfortable with how these addresses should be assigned between 
	the registries and the IETF. Then solve the technical problems we run 
	into and only after that hand it over.

	Wilfried Woeber (Vienna university):
	He could not provide an answer to this but would rather try to extend 
	the question to even IPv4 address space. He wanted to know where the
	advantage is to move the top level authority of that business to an 
	emerging organization like ICANN which has not found it's place right 
	now. 

	Wilfried continued that in particular when first reading the proposal 
	it tastes like honey, but then you get a different taste. In the sense
	that interests are pulled in that have nothing to do with IP address 
	distribution. He was a bit worried and did not see the immediate or 
	medium term benefit of spending the effort. We only get the 
	opportunity to defend our case with technical arguments, however there
	is a certain level which you cannot go beyond with technical 
	arguments. He personally wondered what we are going to get back for 
	all our efforts?

	Esther replied with saying that the board of ICANN were not asked to 
	come and do this, they got selected and did it willingly. A unified 
	consensus group has to be formed, that can do this, rather then remain
	comfortably sitting with their eyes closed while other people are 
	talking about this. It is not a war. Please come sit at the 
	'discussion-table' while you have the opportunity.

	Rob noted that we want ICANN to be a success. Just like in the past 
	we have very fruitfully worked together with IANA. Rob himself worked 
	on re-structuring IANA. During that process a lot of things happened 
	which we could not have foreseen two years ago. RIPE NCC should 
	concentrate on it's part of the pie, the ASO.

	RIPE NCC rightfully demands that we don't want all these strange 
	interest groups that have popped up in the naming area, to 
	artificially re-structure our 10 year way of successful working. 

	Rob again asked for more input on the ASO, because this, at the end of 
	the day, will be done by a couple of people who will meet on a global 
	scale and the people who will represent you are the executives of the 
	NCC whom you elected in office. 

	Erik Huizer stated that he wants to support Rob. He thinks Wilfried is
	right but more and more people are involved and we can't say don't do 
	this. The IETF is questioning whether they should participate at all 
	in the PSO. Erik's vison is that they should. We make ourselves 
	insignificant by not being there rather then achieving something.

	Erik continued to say that there are people out there who want to 
	diminish the influence the PSO and ASO have as much as possible. 
	He wanted to give Keith and the NCC the strong advice to get a letter 
	to the ICANN board saying that we are working on a proposal. 
	Otherwise a silly proposal might get in before us, as being the only 
	proposal. 

	Esther responded to this by saying that the ICANN do have some 
	criteria, they don't have to take just anything that is being put 
	before them. One criterium is broad representation. She does not know 
	of any other group that has a broad representation that is not one of 
	the 3 registries. There may be small interest groups but they have to 
	prove that they represent a large consensus. She agreed that a letter
	should be put forward.

	Daniel Karrenberg (speaking for himself) reported that he shared the 
	concerns that Wilfried had expressed, he didn't want to wave them to 
	the side lightly. On the other side, the things we are doing become 
	more visible, more noticeable, subject to interests that are 
	slowly getting into the RIPE community. This needs to be taken into 
	account, also on a global scale.

	He thinks we need a place where we can have a public process to 
	define global policies for address space allocation and assingment. 
	This already is fairly well covered in Europe by the open process 
	called RIPE and we have the RIPE NCC, which is nicely controled by 
	membership. We need some kind of framework to make decisions for the 
	internet on a global level. The only two oppertunities are: ICANN, or 
	setting up something different. 

	ICANN has gained so much support from important groups, we should 
	very seriously consider working within ICANN and consider another 
	organization only as an absolute last resort. We absolutely do not 
	want to be one nail in the coffin of ICANN. 

	Dfk continued (with his NCC hat on) to react to Erik about the IPv6 
	issue. The NCC has been working with other RIRs on a policy based 
	allocation scheme, this has been discussed in the Local IR and IPv6 
	working groups. We have to look into how the NCC will manage to be in 
	a situation for the address space issues where we answer to 2 higher 
	authorities, this requires some more thinking.

	Because IPv6 is still ermerging we don't know what works and what 
	doesn't yet. Dfk thinks we should not put to heavy weight a process in 
	place for making changes along the way. Maybe we can put this as a
	challenge to ICANN. 

	There is certainly merit in a more lightweight process to 
	start with. We try to make the guidelines such that we don't give 
	away too much of the address space initially, which would limit any 
	room for maneuver that we have. We wrote the procedures such 
	that they can be easily adapted.

	Dfk continued by stating that there certainly is a requirement of the 
	global political process and global authority of IANA to be more 
	flexible in that field then on IPv4. He wanted to get some feedback 
	from the IPv6 people present at the plenary of what they thought.

	Mike Norris (HEAnet). 
	Mike wanted to refer to the aforementioned membership advisory 
	committee of ICANN and pointed out that it is now up and working. It 
	needs to have all the attributes and hallmarks that are features of 
	ICANN itself, it has to be open and transpartent and operate with 
	procedures which result in fairness. Because it has been set up we 
	have an opportunity to experience one of these ICANN committees. 
	People, when they try it out, might be pleasantly surprised. They 
	might see that it is something familiar, it looks like a RIPE Working 
	Group.

	He noted that pointers to the membership advisory committee can be 
	found on the ICANN server. They are publishing their proposals and 
	activities and obviously membership. There is a pretty lively 
	discussion going on on their mailinglist, which is all part of the 
	process. ICANN is working already and there is an opportunity for 
	everyone to see whether they think it is transparent or fair. If you 
	haven't been part of it, you cannot tell if it is fair.

http://www.icann.org

	Esther Dyson informed us that people can subscribe to the mailinglist 
	People shouldn't just take a look, but also try to join in the 
	discussion. Some of the issues discussed here are: who should be the 
	members; should they be organizations or individuals? How do we figure 
	out if these people are real? There are some places (especially in 
	technical area) where people can contribute a great deal in the 
	discussion. 
	
	The membership committee consists of 12/13 people, their conversations
	are archived and published. They have a meeting in Singapore on March 
	2nd, everyone was invited to come. On address issues people are 
	represented throught the ASO. If you want to be represented to ICANN
	in general, joining the at large membership and helping to define it 
	is something you can do.

	Rob: some of the speakers have expressed doubt whether we should be 
	involved at all. He proposed a show of hands. 

	As a result of this Rob commented that it was a fair statement people
	present at the plenary session want ICANN to be a success. The coming 
	months there will be several meetings of the subsets of the boards of 
	the various RIRs. The remaining issues will be hammered out and we will
	come up with a proposal on the addres support organization. A
	report will be given on the soon to be opened mailinglist. 

	
	
	It will be a help to Keith and the boards if they could get feedback 
	on this list on whether we really give support to our leadershaping 
	team. Rob asked the people present if they supported Keith and our 
	elected board in representing their interests in this. 

	Dfk did not think this was the right question. They have legitimacy of 
	their own by being elected. A better question might be: should they 
	continue making an ASO?

	Rob continued by asking if the people present thought that the kernel 
	or the whole ASO should be made up of the regional registries and 
	should they play an active and strong role there. No one disagreed.

	Wilfried Woeber wanted to know if people thought it was useful to 
	have at large representation on both the ICANN level and on the SO 
	level and thus having a division of votes or influences as it is 
	proposed right now.

	Dfk reminded everyone that it was a  departure from our tradition to
	have a show of hands. He was interested in what Wilfried said but it 
	was too complicated to have a yes or no answer to. 

	Dfk continued: over this whole 2 years of discussion that we 
	have reported on, we have seen that the world has changed. We have 
	seen that on the ICANN level and we have seen the influence of what 
	is now the at large membership. He personally believes it is 
	something we should work with and not debate.

	On the other side, should we have an organziation where we make the 
	global policies on address space allocations and assignments, by 
	others that are not in this room but may have legimate interest. 
	As far as RIPE is concerned: we are open. If somebody has an 
	interest they can find us. Do we need another incarnation of RIPE 
	making address policy on a global level? Do we have a preference for 
	the hierarchical representative and open on the regional level, or 
	do we have a preference on the global, open for everybody level. 
	This is more consise.

	Rob stated that RIPE/Europe feels that: 
	a) anyone who has a legitimate interest in address policy should be 
	   somehow inside the ASO
	b) we have a very strong preference to have this organization on a 
	   regional level. 

	Esther Dyson replied that there is no statement by ICANN that 
	there specifically needs to be an at large membership within the ASO. 
	There is a statement that it needs to be open and there are various 
	ways to interpret that. If a constituent organization is open and 
	transparent that to her was pretty compelling.

	She continued to say that she takes it upon herself to visit some 
	other regional registries and that she wants to visit the RIRs more 
	regularly. The people should not have to fly everywhere around the 
	world to be heard. 

	The ASO does have to deal with the at large members on the ICANN level 
	Esther was not sure that there is any need for redundancy.

	Keith Mitchell concurred with what had been said. For clarification 
	he added that he thought we maybe have three options as far as the ASO 
	structrue is concerned. 

	1) we work from the baseline with the existing regional internet 
	   registries organizations (such as RIPE NCC through RIPE for 
	   example) and assume that we don't need anything else
	2) the ASO is comprised of regional registries plus at large members 
	   and the members are selected through regional structures. Same 
	   kind of thing but have some RIPE people participate directly in the 
	   ASO alongside NCC people participating as a registry.

	[ the first two we are relatively happpy with ]

	3) the third option is that the regional registries have 
	   representation in the ASO on a regional basis, but that there is a 
	   global at large representation. 

	[ we are a bit unhappy with this option ]

	There is another knob to turn on the latter two of these proposals, 
	which is to say that there is formal participation representatives in 
	the ASO from the open organizations, rather then just from the 
	registries themselves. However, they possibly have less authority 
	then the actual regional registries represent. That's another option 
	which has been kicked around.

	We have seen these three options from the RIPE NCCs point of 
	view, in order of importance. Keith wanted everyone to have a think 
	about this. He would find it very useful to receive feedback on it.

 - d. - Conclusions & next steps

	Keith stated that as far as he could tell a reasonable degree of 
	support was given for progressing on the basis that we have been. 
	We think we've got our house in order and we want to bring that to 
	ICANN and use that as a model for progression. We have a reasonable 
	degree of confidence in the way that we have progressed with the 
	proposed course of action.

	He wanted to encourage the people present to take the message back and
	discuss it in their organizations and see if they are happy with what 
	we are doing.

	Keith expressed thanks to Christopher Wilkinson from the EU for 
	supporting this process. We are getting there and are going to 
	proceed in the basis that we have, but if anyone has any concerns 
	please let us know.

	Rob thanked Keith and thanked Esther for being present to this
	RIPE meeting.

 - 9. - Working group reports.

	The chairs from the various working groups gave reports on the working
	group meetings that were held earlier during the week. Summaries of 
	the meetings, provided by the working group chairpersons, are included
	here. Full minutes of the working groups will be accessible from: 

http://www.ripe.net/wg/

        Routing WG
	----------
	Chair: Joachim Schmitz JS335-RIPE
	Attendees: 74
	Scribe: Roman Karpiuk

	Topics:

	o Report from the 

RPSL Tutorial

(J. Schmitz)
	o Report from the IETF (J. Schmitz)
	o Reports on RPSL deployment
	  - ISI/Qwest and overview (D. Kessens)
	  - RIPE NCC (JLS Damas)
	o Observations in Internet Routing (A. Akvja)
	o Reality Checking of the RIPE Routing Registry (J. Schmitz)
	o Cooperations with MBone WG (K. Kayser) 

	Actions:

	29.R1 G. Winters, J. Schmitz, NCC 
	      Definition of the IRR and an AUP

	31.R1 NCC, D. Kessens, J. Schmitz 
	      Basic design for an IPv6 IRR

	32.R1 NCC/JLS Damas 
	      Prepare proposals for ripe-181 -> RPSL transition issues

	32.R1 J. Schmitz 
	      Write up project proposal for RIPE RR reality checking.

	Database security taskforce
	---------------------------

	Topics:

	o draf-ietf-rps-auth-01.txt
	  Discussion of scope and impact on database users. 
	  How much security is needed?

	o Project for prefix/origin authentication at RIPE 
	  Discussion of user interface

	Actions:

	32.DSTF1 Supply new RPSWG milestones
	32.DSTF2 Precise definition of prefix/origin authentication
	32.DSTF3 Analysis of user impact 

	Remark: these actions have a tight schedule attached to it.

	Next meetings:
	During the IETF and RIPE 33

	Q: Dfk prefix origin auth. Only limited to database or using 
	database to do something in your routing
	
	A: Joachim, two sides we defintely want to make sure that the data
	is secured so that melicious or incidental attacks are avoided. 
	Crack of .. is something we are thinking about. Joachim feels that 
	these proposals still lack a basis of authority the routing reg is a 
	very suitable means to guide this route of security

	Q: Dfk, if I'm an ISP where can put in my input. Group is very closed.
	A: Joachim contact me directly. We will definitely use input from 
	community but for now try to keep task force as small as possible.
	Noone can hide behind the others.

	Dfk: not critizing is right otherwise get nothing done. Progressing 
	in getting a specification that's very useful but have to make sure 
	ISPs have input.
	Joachim agreed that we really need input from public. 
	

	Wilfried: 
	We were scetching out blue print for use. We felt rather comfortable 
	doing that however adding credibility to routing. Would like to ask 
	ISPs or others with interest please contact us. We are seeking 
	knowledge in this field. Or give us suggestions on who we can 
	approach. Will do a check in the may ripe meeting. We do want to 
	propose and implement something that is usefull to the community.


	Mbone WG
	--------
	Chair: Kurt Kayser

        MBone-WG short report

	This time the WG session was jointly operated by the Routing-WG and 
	the Mbone-WG. This was a result due to the low feedback from the poll 
	about topics and desired agenda items.

	It left lots of room for interpretation and in order not to expand 
	the WG-sessions at RIPE meetings too much, Kurt has suggested to 
	integrate Mbone as a sub-topic into the Routing-WG, since all signs 
	points towards this as the right direction. Following the motto:
	'Put Multicast there where it belongs: Into the Routers. Let Multicast
	work where 'normal' routing also happens.'

	There was some discussion what might be the reason for the low 
	response, as one of Kurt's assumptions was that people have no 
	problems... and might be busy currently migrating from DVMRP based 
	Multicast to PIM or native Multicast routing. 

	It seems to the audience that a migration and no problems where 
	mutually exclusive and people wondered... There was a quick poll 
	initiated by Havard Eidnes who's currently using Multicast. There 
	were some hands raised, but after the question who's using it with
	a commercial background, there was just one participant from the 
	Astra-Satellite System that claimed to have an application running 
	production Multicast on a commercial level. 

	Conclusions (drawn by Kurt Kayser) basically were, that the Mbone as 
	we know is changing dramatically (Actually there's even controversy 
	what it stands for: 
	a) The experimental Multicast-Backbone, or 
	b) the DVMRP based tunnel system)

	Nevertheless there is connectivity between the 'old Mbone' and the 
	new MBGP/native-Multicast/PIM based network located at NASA-Ames. 
	Naturally this poses a bottleneck for traffic that needs to traverse 
	to reach either side of the network wings.

	Summary: Current workload of the WG does not justify a full time-slot 
	at a RIPE meeting, therefore Kurt asked the community if there are 
	objections to integrate it into the Routing-WG as a sub-topic. People 
	on the mailing-list asked to keep the Mailing-List itself and the 
	Contacts page on the web for Multicast-enabled network administrator 
	up running. If there's desire and enough demand, there shall be no 
	problem to allocate again more time to the WG when there is work to 
	be done. Kurt: IMHO: 'The Mbone as we knew it is vanishing - R.I.P. 
	and YES it was RIP based :-)

	Kurt: PS: Remember Radio-RIX?

	Database WG
	-----------
	Chair wilfried woeber
	Attendees: 93
	Scribe: Janne Snabb (RIPE NCC)

	Important note: freezing development for "old" software!?
	There are proposals to do that right now. Again we want to ask the 
	community to have a discussion and get people to get up and voice 
	there suggestions/comments. Please contact us. Speak up.

	Questions? 

	Niall O'Reilly suggested that the date of the next RIPE meeting in 
	Vienna (5-7 May 1999) should be the target date for freezing. 
	Wilfried agreed. We have got most of the things we have asked for. 
	There are no other major projects. Everything is done, there might
	be a tiny bug somewhere, but it will not stop the process.

	TLD WG
	------
	Chair: Niall O'Reilly
	Attendees: 23
	Scribe: Hans Niklasson

	Number of ccTLD Registries represented: 8

	Current Actions
	Overdue minutes
	Status of whois referral mechanism
	All closed

	Workplan
	Re-organisation needed

	Some areas to be merged

	Explicit reference to liaison DNS-WG

	NIC FR directory project: demo at Vienna

	Whois referral
	Presentation by Joao Damas
	Current implementation is just what is needed

	RIPE CENTR


	Progress update from Fay Howard

	CENTR ExCo now elected
	CENTR to incorporate in near future
	RIPE CENTR project to terminate by 30 June 1999


	ICANN/DNSO
	Fay Howard presented current status
	Fresh approach from IE Registry
	ICANN pressing for DNSO proposal by 5 Feb 1999

	Questions
	Relationship RIPE & TLD-WG <--> CENTR

	New Actions:
        
	TLD-32.1 [Chair]
                 Update Workplan
        TLD-32.2 [Chair]
                 Determine DNS-SEC plans
                 and need for support from DNS-WG
        TLD-32.3 [Chair]
                 Advise DB-WG of number of registries planning to use
                 RIPE whois code
        TLD-32.4 [Philippe Renaut] 
                 Present NIC-FR directory work at Vienna
        TLD-32.5 [Mike Norris] 
                 Co-ordinate review of RIPE-152

	Niall wanted to mention in closing thanks to the NCC support 
	people and especially to Fay Howard.

	EIX EG
	------
	Chair: Fearghas Mckay
	Attendees: 55
	Scribe: Martin McCarthy

http://www.ripe.net/wg/eix/


	Test Traffic WG
	---------------
	Chair: Martin McCarthy
	Scribe: Daniel Karrenberg

http://www.ripe.net/test-traffic/Talks/9901_ripe32/

Local IR WG
	-----------
	Chair: Hans-Petter Holen
	Attendees: +/- 63
	Scribe: Eamonn McGuinness

	Agenda
	1.  Admin

	  - scribe
	  - participant list
	  - agenda 
	  - meet the RIPE NCC hostmasters
	  - mailinglists

	2. RIPE 31

	   - minutes
	   - actions

	3. RIPE Reports & Presentations

	   - Registry report by Paula
	   - IPv6 Assignment and Allocation Policy Document
	   - Auditing Activity
	   - Web interface
	4.  Reports from other registries

	   - APNIC, ARIN, AfriNIC

	6.  Statistics

	7. Tagging IP adresses 

	8.  I/O with other WGs

	   - DB-GW (Tomorrow 1400)
	   - IPv6 see 5. (Tomorrow 1100)
	   - (ICANN (Plenary today 1400))

	9.  AOB

	   - PI address space rules
	   - Policies for IP adresses for Cable networks
	   - Policies on assigning multicas adresses

	Action Points LIR-WG RIPE 32

	   - NCC: Web interface to RIPE 141.
             Announce, receive comments, and make source public
	   - NCC: Get IPv6 Guidelines in place
	   - NCC: write up suggestion on lowering AW from /19
	   - Guy Davies, UUnet: Start discussion on list on max allocation 
	     size and internal aggregation needs for large networks
	   - NCC: Make pretty address statistics charts
	   - Poul-Henning: Present proposal on tagging IP addresses for 
	     anti SPAM measures
	   - NCC: IP adresses to cable networks 
             Document current IANA policy and align practice with other IRRs
           - Everybody: Participate in policies for IPv6 discussion 
             How much IP address space is used ?
	     http://www.caida.org/IPv4space/


	Hans Petter Holen also wanted us to think about what we want a chair 
	of a Local IR Working Group to be? Send suggestions to Hans or on 
	the mailinglist.

	Anti-SPAM WG
	------------
	Chair: James Aldridge
	Attendees: 40
	Scribe: Raza Rizvi (Rednet)

	Rodney Tillotson  from janet has 
	volunteerd to become new chair.

	Wilfried: interested in IP tagging thingy. Pushed it to the LIR 
	people and anti-SPAM WG. In which perspecive want to pursue. As 
	soon as anti spam has found their view in this. And than database 
	will be happy to implement it. James anti-SPAM is the place to further
	discuss it. Wilfried do that now and then take it from there..

	Netnews WG
	----------
	Chair: Felix Kugler (reported by Gerhard Winkler)
	Attendees: 19
	Scribe: Antony Antony (RIPE NCC) 

	The meeting focused on the groupsync project which aims to establish
	an improved system to maintain Usenet group lists. A prototype was
	ready right before the meeting. Betatesting is planned for the period
	up to RIPE33 with the goal to have a first stable version at that time
	and to identify helpful modifications.

	Action summary:
        
	closed:  A30.N5  groupsync prototype by Jonas Luster, done.
		 A30.N4  flowmaps - whois data support (unclear whether
			 required at all). 

	open:    A30.N3  flowmaps - visualization of news traffic flows
		 A31.N1  fill groupsync server with newsgroup data
	new:     A32.N1  test groupsync prototype    

	Details: the minutes are available online 

http://www.switch.ch/netnews/wg/ripe32/ripe32.nnwg-minutes

	DNS WG
	------
	Chair: Ruediger volk
	Attendees: 62
	Scribe: Lee Wilmot

	Documents: dummies guide specific reccommendations general bLP - SDA

	Statistics (gathering), errors obeserved, quality

	Issues of upcoming software

	DNS sec upcoming
	Non problems Y2K 

	IPv6 WG
	-------
	Chair: David Kessens 
	Attendees: 120
	Scribe: Sabrina Waschke

	Experimental 6bone network growing fast (exponential)

	- new initiative for first production backbone: 6ren
	  for more info talk to David.

	Minor changes for inet6num object proposed by the ripe ncc
	- discussion of ipv6 allocation guidelines -> discussion will be 
	  done by ipv6 working group (mailinglist) please subsribe to 
	  mailinglist for your input. Proposal was written by the RIRs (not 
	  just ncc)

	Paula gave presentation on draft
	- Guidelines are considered to be at he restrictive side.
	- First goal should be routability not conservation

	Thomas Trede asked if there is a co-chair. Jan czmok can be 
	co-chair but he wasn't there.

	Remark: Vesna Manojlovic (RIPE NCC) please subscribe to mailinglist. 
        (moderators )


 - 10. - Next Meetings

	 RIPE 33 May 1999 Vienna
	 RIPE 34 Sep 1999 Amsterdam
	 RIPE 35 Jan 2000 Amsterdam
	 RIPE 36 May 2000 Budapest
	 RIPE 37 sep 2000 Amsterdam

	 The chair reminded us all of the hotel situation in Vienna. 
	 On the RIPE NCC website you can find the recommendation to book asap.
	 Some hotels are mentioned there. Have a look and book early!

 - 11. - AOB

	 There was no other business.

 - 12. - Close

	 The chair thanked everyone for coming and also thanked the RIPE NCC 
	 staff for organising the meeting. 
	 
	 The chair also thanked the sponsos (Tachyon, Skycache and Carrier1)
	 for the receptions they offered. It certainly improved networking.




 

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