[ncc-services-wg] Divergence of RIPE / RIPE NCC policy

Nigel,

Thanks for replying.  I had hoped - and still hope - for a reply from the
RIPE chair (not the RIPE NCC chair) because I believe this to be a matter
of some importance to the RIPE Community.

I don't want to get into an analysis of why and how 2008-08 failed, but I
do think it's worth noting that the razor-thin majority vote in the Sep
2011 RIPE NCC General Meeting suggests that there was and is substantially
more community dissent about this than you admit in your reply.  This was
clear prior to the GM vote, given the scale of the fire storm which erupted
over 2008-08, mid 2011.

> continuously: that the community asks the NCC to do something which has
> serious financial implications for the membership and for which there is no
> means, under the PDP, of refusal.

Research into resource certification was requested by the community via the
task force, not via the PDP.  The PDP later returned a result: that the
issue was highly divisive.  It wasn't a helpful result from the point of
view of moving resource certification forward, and the NCC board chose to
ignore it.

> Under the circumstances, the board took the only course sensibly
> available to them and asked the membership how they wanted to proceed:

This wasn't the only course of action sensibly available, imo - but it was
a course of action that had a significant risk of policy divergence which
has now occurred.

> So, after this long email, what do I say to your original question? Well, I
> passionately believe (and so does the Board and the NCC) in the bottom up
> process  [...] 
> In this case, having got a go ahead from the membership, however
> lukewarm, it didn't seem a large step to add certificates for PI as well
> as PA.

At least there was an attempt to engage with the community regarding PA
blocks, even if it produced a frustrating result.

For PI blocks, there has been no attempt to engage with the community.  I
don't understand how a complete lack of engagement with the RIPE Community
on this issue is compatible with the bottom up process.

By pressing ahead with these plans, the RIPE NCC board is sending a clear
signal that it is prepared to ignore the bottom-up process when expedient
to do so.  I believe that this is deeply harmful to the RIPE community and
ultimately to the RIPE NCC.

Nick