RIPE 91 - RIPE Community Plenary Minutes
Thursday, 23 October 2025
16:00 – 17:30 (UTC+3)
Chair: Mirjam Kühne
Scribe: Ulka Athale
Status: Draft
1. RIPE Chair Team Update
Mirjam Kühne, RIPE Chair
Mirjam Kühne opened the session by welcoming attendees and presenting the work of the RIPE Chair Team since RIPE 90. She reported that the Chair Team had monitored developments at the Number Resource Organisation Number Council (NRO NC), supported a smooth hand-over to the incoming RIPE Vice Chair, and worked together with the RIPE NCC on improving document-store accessibility and policy-document consistency. She reminded the community of upcoming RIPE meeting dates (up to RIPE 100) to enable long-range planning, highlighted the childcare initiative at RIPE meetings, and called for volunteers for the Rob Blokzijl Foundation Nomination Committee.
Mirjam ended her presentation by stating that her term as RIPE Chair from 2020 – 2025 had officially ended, as had that of Niall O’Reilly as RIPE Vice Chair.
Jan Žorž, ProVision, then took over as the temporary session chair, in his capacity as Chair of the RIPE NomCom. He thanked all the voting and non-voting members of the NomCom and liaisons who participated in the RIPE Chair selection process. He reminded everyone of the importance of the RIPE Discussion list and the need to get involved in community processes. The recommendations of the NomCom have been published on the NomCom website and would soon be published as a RIPE Document as well. He welcomed Mirjam Kühne back as RIPE Chair for a second term running from 2025-2030 and Anna Wilson as the incoming RIPE Vice Chair.
Mirjam officially thanked Niall O’Reilly for serving as the RIPE Vice Chair, for which Niall received a standing ovation.
Niall thanked everyone and congratulated Anna for being selected for the role.
Mirjam resumed chairing the session as the new RIPE Chair.
2. The New RIPE Fellowship: Bringing New Voices That Stay!
Laura Lorenzo, RIPE NCC
Laura Lorenzo explained the evolution of the RIPE Fellowship programme, introduced at RIPE 74, and described how the redesign is intended to enhance long-term engagement of Fellows beyond attendance funding. She walked through new features including mentorship, follow-up activities, and retention support, and announced the timeline and eligibility criteria for the next application cycle.
Urban Suhadolnik, TU Graz, commented that several different groups in the RIPE NCC service region face barriers to attending RIPE Meetings, including participants from lower-income countries, students and younger professionals who would benefit from mentoring, and even well-resourced RIPE NCC members who may need additional encouragement to engage. He noted that each of these groups requires different forms of support. He suggested that initiatives such as the Fellowship Programme should expand in scope and be designed with clearer targeting toward specific audiences. He emphasised that the redesigned Fellowship is already a strong improvement and expressed appreciation for the work done so far.
Laura responded that regional outreach is indeed integral to the redesign and that feedback is being gathered from past Fellows in those regions.
Vladislav Bidikov (Faculty of Computer Science & Engineering / IXP.mk) asked whether Fellows will be required to report back after 12 months regarding their community contributions. Laura clarified that the redesign includes a light-touch reporting element and optional mentoring engagements, rather than a heavy administrative burden.
3. RIPE Community at WHY2025
Ondřej Caletka, RIPE NCC
Ondřej Caletka described how some RIPE NCC staff participated at the hacker camp WHY 2025 held in the Netherlands in August 2025 by sponsoring the RIPE Community village.
Will van Gulik, Saitis, asked whether the RIPE community could have a RIPE booth at events such as CCC, noting that these gatherings offer valuable outreach opportunities.
Ondřej Caletka, RIPE NCC, replied that he could not commit to this on behalf of the organisation and pointing out that funding is approved by members and such initiatives need support at the RIPE NCC General Meeting (GM).
Will replied that he would be willing to refer to this at the GM.
Sander Steffann, RIPE NCC Executive Board, said that he had been pleasantly surprised to see the RIPE NCC presence at the hacker camp and praised the organisation for effectively reaching communities that might not otherwise engage with RIPE. He added that many hacker spaces now operate their own ASNs, making such outreach particularly meaningful.
Urban Suhadolnik, TU Graz, thanked the RIPE NCC and Ondřej for attending hacker events and emphasised that hacker spaces bring together some of the most talented and creative people in technology. He urged continued support for these spaces, including funding, Internet connectivity and BGP access, arguing that their members will strengthen the wider RIPE community in the future.
Ondřej thanked everyone for their comments.
4. 10 Years at the RIPE Community – The Benefits of Collaboration
Vladislav Bidikov, Faculty of Computer Science & Engineering / IXP.mk
Vladislav Bidikov shared a decade of his engagement in the RIPE community, including his work at IXP.mk and involvement in RIPE Working Groups, Task Forces and regional hubs. He emphasised lessons learned: proactively volunteering, building cross-region relationships, and the value of incremental contributions and collaboration.
There were no questions or comments.
5. IANA Updates: Numbers, Broader Functions, and Strategic Alignment
Marilia Hirano, ICANN
Marilia Hirano presented on the latest from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) regarding number-resource services, broader functions (names, protocols) and how IANA’s 2030 Strategy aligns with the RIPE region. She covered policy-driven activities (such as global numbering-services review), technical projects (automation, transparency) and how IANA is adapting to remain fit for the evolving Internet ecosystem.
Lars-Johan Liman, Netnod, thanked Marilia and said that he’d spent the past five years on various committees reviewing IANA and its technical and administrative work. He said that if there is any part of Internet administration that just works, it’s IANA.
6. NRO NC: Report from the ICP-2 BoF
Hervé Clément, Andrei Robachevsky and Constanze Bürger (NRO NC)
Hervé Clément, Andrei Robachevsky and Constanze Bürger reported on the Monday BoF “Updating ICP-2: Discussing the second draft RIR Governance Document”. They summarised the key pieces of feedback heard from the audience – the need to reconsider the unanimity-based decision model, the importance of documentation and archiving, finding the right level of detail to include about implementation, concerns about NIRs and the definition of good faith. They reminded the audience to submit any comments before 7 November via the RIPE Discussion list.
Leo Vegoda, And Polus, thanked the NRO NC for their excellent work and asked about the review process going into the future.
Andrei replied that the draft document introduces a five-year review schedule.
Danko Jevtovic, RNIDS, suggested stress-testing scenarios with the next iteration of the document, not just at the ICANN or NRO level, and could also be done at the RIPE level.
7. Any Other Business (A.O.B.)
Mirjam Kühne invited any remaining business, reminded attendees to complete the meeting-feedback survey and rate the talks, and encouraged participation in the upcoming Programme Committee elections.
Remco van Mook, Slashme, said that RIPE Document 692 obliges Working Group Chairs to publish clear processes for appointments, terms and removals, but noted that several Working Groups still have not implemented this even eight years after the document reached consensus. He asked the RIPE Chair Team to provide an overview of which Working Groups have complied and asked the community whether the current situation is acceptable or whether they should work on harmonising this.
Mirjam replied that the document is currently being updated and may require a more thorough overhaul. She added that the Working Group Chairs and RIPE Chair team were in the process of discussing this specific point. She further noted that information on terms and selection processes is available on each Working Group’s webpage, though it may not be as accessible or consistent as desired.
Remco responded that he had reviewed the Working Group pages and found the information inconsistent and difficult to piece together and argued that some groups did not satisfy the community’s requirements.
Mirjam agreed that there are many variations in practice and reiterated that more work is needed both by the Chair Team and the Working Groups.
Lars-Johan Liman, Netnod, suggested lowering the barrier for rating talks, explaining that multifactor authentication makes the process too cumbersome.
Mirjam said that it would be looked into.
Jim Reid, rftm llp, commented that if Working Group Chairs fail to publish clear appointment processes, the RIPE Chair should intervene more directly and, if necessary, ask non-performing Chairs to step aside. He advised against harmonising processes across Working Groups, warning that previous attempts led to unresolvable disagreements and that autonomy is preferable as long as each group has a transparent procedure.
Mirjam replied that unclear and inconsistent processes is confusing for newcomers and can hinder their path into leadership roles, though she understood his concerns about harmonisation.
Hans Petter Holen, speaking as a former Working Group Chair and a former RIPE Chair posed a rhetorical question, asking why Working Group Chairs should define the process by which they are selected, stating that this responsibility should rest with the wider community.
Jim added that the community approves the processes chosen by each Working Group.
Dmytro Kohmanyuk, Hostmaster LLC, congratulated the newly-appointed RIPE Chair team and suggested that Working Groups adopt practices similar to the Programme Committee by clearly indicating term limits and term-expiration dates for each Chair, so prospective candidates can see when positions will open. He also recommended that Pretalx submissions be locked after each meeting to prevent post-event edits, noting both the risk of account compromise and the value of preserving the historical record.
Rüdiger Volk, retired, recalled that early discussions on Working Group Chair selection processes took place among Chairs rather than the wider community, which he believed was a flawed approach and contributed to today’s inconsistencies. He argued that the community should avoid repeating past mistakes and should consider whether a more unified approach might now be feasible, even if consensus-building across the full community is challenging.
Clara Wade, Amazon Web Services, suggested that Working Group Chairs could adopt a system similar to that used for the Programme Committee. Clara proposed improving the NomCom randomised selection algorithm to incorporate diversity criteria. She also urged the RIPE NCC to retain the childcare service, suggesting a threshold-based model—where the service proceeds only if enough children are registered, to ensure sustainability without eliminating the option entirely.
Simon Leinen, SWITCH, asked for an increase in the free-text character limit in the feedback form, as the current limit restricts substantive input.
Jordi Palet, The IPv6 Company, agreed with Hans Petter that Working Group procedures should not differ across groups and that a single community-wide process, as seen in other RIRs would make more sense.
Niall O’Reilly, RIPE Vice-Chair Emeritus, proposed addressing Remco’s concerns by creating a RIPE-level policy describing what Working Group Chair processes must include, while allowing each Working Group to implement the policy in a conformant way that could still be individually determined.
Mirjam thanked everyone for participating and concluded the session.