This document describes the selection of the RIPE Chair and the RIPE Vice Chair. This is an invoking RIPE Document for the purpose of ripe-728. The role of RIPE Chair is described in ripe-714.
The first Chair of RIPE, Rob Blokzijl, was selected informally. Until the time of writing the RIPE community had not established a formal process for the selection of RIPE Chairs. When Rob asked Hans Petter Holen to assume the role of RIPE Chair, he suggested that RIPE should establish such a process. This document describes that process. For more details on the background and genesis of this document see Appendix G.
The following broad principles emerged from an extensive community discussion:
For details about the community discussions see Appendix G.
RIPE Meeting: A RIPE Meeting is an event where Internet Service Providers (ISPs), network operators and other interested parties gather to discuss issues of interest to the Internet community. This procedure assumes that there are two RIPE Meetings each year.
For an overview of the selection process timeline see Appendix T.
Any natural person is eligible for selection unless they have already been selected twice for the role they are nominated for. It does not matter whether the terms are consecutive. Any time a person has served as "RIPE Chair Ad Interim" does not count towards the term limit. In other words: a person can serve a maximum of two terms in each role in any order and with breaks between terms.
The RIPE Chair and RIPE Vice Chair serve until the RIPE Meeting closest to the fifth anniversary of taking on their role, the Transition RIPE Meeting. The terms for both roles start and end at the same time.
This document invokes ripe-728 for the selection procedure.
In summary:
At the Transition RIPE Meeting the newly selected persons take on their roles.
In case the RIPE Chair resigns, the RIPE Vice Chair takes on the role of RIPE Chair and promptly initiates this selection procedure. In case the RIPE Vice Chair is not available either, the RIPE WG Chairs Collective promptly initiates this selection procedure and selects a person to act as RIPE Chair Ad Interim.
In case the RIPE Vice Chair resigns, the RIPE Chair consults the community on how to proceed. They may either select a person to fill the role for the remaining term or decide to initiate this selection procedure.
A serving RIPE Chair or RIPE Vice Chair may be recalled according to the procedure described in ripe-728.
This document is a guideline that explicitly allows ad hoc deviations both for pragmatic reasons and in unforeseen circumstances without having to change this document each time. Any such deviations and the appropriate community involvement should be clearly documented each time.
[ripe-728] "The RIPE Nominating Committee", Hans Petter Holen, Mirjam Kühne, Daniel Karrenberg, Anna Wilson, July 2019
[ripe-714] "The RIPE Chair", Daniel Karrenberg, January 2019
The authors acknowledge the contributions and efforts of everyone who participated in the community discussions that form the basis on which we were able to build this document. In particular Bijal Sanghani, Randy Bush, Sander Steffann, Brian Nisbet and Jim Reid offered detailed suggestions and comments. Antony Gollan checked our orthography and improved our style.
Hans Petter Holen is a RIPE participant since RIPE 22 and the present RIPE Chair. Rob Blokzijl asked him to ensure that the community establishes the procedure described here.
Mirjam Kühne is a RIPE participant since RIPE 19 and a member of the RIPE NCC staff. She took on the task of supporting the community and Hans Petter in this effort.
Daniel Karrenberg is one of the RIPE founders and a member of the RIPE NCC staff. He took on the job of editing this document and writing the bulk of the text.
Anna Wilson is a RIPE participant since RIPE 31. She has led several fairly intense community discussions about this procedure.
In 2014, during the closing plenary at RIPE 68, Rob Blokzijl announced that he would be stepping down as RIPE Chair and handing the role over to the current chair, Hans Petter Holen.
This decision was well supported by the RIPE community. However, it was clear that the process for selecting a future RIPE Chair should be open, transparent and endorsed by the RIPE community as a whole. At the time of the handover, Rob urged the community to establish such a process under its new chair.
In 2016, Hans Petter started the discussion by publishing an article on RIPE Labs: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/hans_petter_holen/draft-ripe-chair-election-procedure
At the same time an open discussion mailing list was set up: https://www.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-chair-discuss/
At RIPE 76 in May 2018, Anna Wilson (HEANET, Ireland) led a community discussion (https://ripe76.ripe.net/archives/video/155/) to gather input on the elements that form the basis of a proposal which was published on RIPE Labs in July 2018: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/mirjam/proposal-for-a-ripe-chair-selection-process
Based on the discussion on the ripe-chair-discuss mailing list, another RIPE Labs article was published documenting the consensus at the time: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/mirjam/ripe-chair-selection-process
After that, more people shared their input on the mailing list which led to another face-to-face discussion, again led by Anna Wilson during the closing plenary at RIPE 77 in October 2018: https://ripe77.ripe.net/archives/video/2329/
During that meeting, it was decided to first establish consensus on a description of the role of the RIPE Chair. This was published as ripe-714: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-714
The text of this document has been discussed and revised based on community discussions on The RIPE Chair Discuss List between March 2019 and May 2019.
A final BoF during RIPE 78 concluded without major suggestions for changes and the RIPE Chair announced to the community that he intended to call for consensus on both this document and ripe-728 soon after the meeting. On 4 July 2019, he made this call on the ripe mailing list; on 30 August he declared consenus.
When publishing this updated version of the document, the timeline in Appendix T was changed to be aligned with ripe-728.
This appendix is included for the convenience of the reader and is not to be interpreted as the definitive timeline. It is intended to capture the detail described elsewhere in this document in one place. Although every effort has been made to ensure the description here is consistent with the description elsewhere, if there are any conflicts the definitive rule is the one in the main body of this document.
The total timeline spans 13 months in two consecutive years. For illustration the timeline includes a "nominal month and year" based on the assumption that the Transition RIPE Meeting will take place in October of year two.
Event | Deadline | Nominal Month |
---|---|---|
NomCom chair appointed |
15 days before Nomination RIPE Meeting |
September / 1 |
Nominations RIPE Meeting |
Two meetings before Transition RIPE Meeting |
October / 1 |
Call for NomCom volunteers |
During nomination RIPE Meeting |
October / 1 |
NomCom volunteers announced |
30 days after call for volunteers |
November / 1 |
NomCom announced |
45 days after call for volunteers |
December / 1 |
NomCom organised |
90 days before Consultation RIPE Meeting |
January / 2 |
Call for nominations |
When Nomcom is organised |
January / 2 |
Nominations close |
~45 days after call for nominations |
March / 2 |
Nominees announced |
15 days before Consultation RIPE Meeting |
April / 2 |
Consultation RIPE Meeting |
One meeting before Transition RIPE Meeting |
May / 2 |
NomCom makes selection |
90 days before Transition RIPE Meeting |
July / 2 |
Selection Confirmed |
30 days after NomCom makes selection |
August / 2 |
Selection Announced |
15 days before Transition RIPE Meeting |
September / 2 |
Transition RIPE Meeting |
5th anniversary of previous transition |
October / 2 |
NomCom Report |
During Transition RIPE Meeting |
October / 2 |
Transition |
During Transition RIPE Meeting |
October / 2 |