                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________




                          RIPE NCC Contributors Committee

                            September 23rd 1997 Meeting


                                      Minutes

                                Scribe: Paula Caslav
                                 Document: ripe-169



                                   ABSTRACT


                          Traditionally these minutes reflect
                     the detailed discussions for the benefit
                     of those unable to attend the meeting.
                     Those interested in a very short summary
                     may want to refer to the Appendix listing
                     the decisions.





























                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 1
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

    List of Participants (incomplete):

                Name

                Lajos Balint: HUNGARNET
                Jaroslav Bobovsky: SANET
                Antonio-Blasco Bonito: CNR
                Andrea Colangelo: Flashnet S.p.A.
                Bridget P. Cosgrave: ETSI
                Klaus Ellegaard: Azlan Scandinavia A/S
                Alexandre Fasani: GRAPHNET Inc.
                Gordon Fielden: FireNet Limited
                Michael Froehlich: Ebone NOC
                Roberto Gaetano: ETSI
                Hans Petter Holen: Scandinavia Online AS
                Dana Hudes:  Graphnet
                Daniel Karrenberg: RIPE NCC
                Kurt Kayser: VIAG Interkom
                Dragan Kovacevic: Telekom Srbija
                Mirjam Kuehne: RIPE NCC
                Siegfried Langenbach: CSL
                Klaus Landefeld: Nacamar
                Maarten E. Linthorst: GoldNet / CSI Communication
                Systems Inc. AG
                Erik Lohr: IBM
                Thierry Louail: COLT
                Ruben Martinez: RedIRIS
                Balazs Martos: CSL GmbH
                Kees Neggers: SURFnet
                Carol Orange: RIPE NCC
                Juergen Rauschenbach: DFN-Verein e.V.
                Paul Ridley: RIPE NCC
                Marc Roger: BELNET
                Carsten Schiefner: TCP/IP GmbH
                Gordana Dubajic Sekulic: "Telekom Srbija"
                Igor Semenyuk: Sovam Teleport
                Nick Shield: UKERNA
                Cliff Stanford: Demon Internet Limited
                Henk Steenman: AT&T VAS
                Nigel Titley: British Telecom
                Michele Trotta: Flashnet S.p.A.
                Mourad Veeneman: A2000 / Kabeltelevisie Amsterdam
                Aude Vergult: TRANSPAC
                Karel Vietsch: TERENA
                Wim Vink: EUnet
                Ton Windgassen: IBM Global Services Network Services
                Wilfried Woeber: VUCC - ACOnet
                Zoltan Zsido: Westel 900 GSM Mobile Teleco.

    List of Apologies (incomplete):

                Peter Villemoes: NORDUNET

                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 2
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

    0. Welcome and Preliminaries:

                Kees Neggers welcomed all attendees.  He volunteered
                to chair the meeting, everybody agreed.  The agenda
                was agreed.

    1. RIPE NCC Activity Report: (ripe-144)

                Mirjam Kuehne and Carol Orange (RIPE NCC) reported.

                Document:
                http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-144.html
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-144.txt
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-144.ps

                Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet-
                ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/act-rep/

                Registration Services Summary: Number of registries
                growing linearly (1 new LIR per day), therefore the
                amount of work is still growing. Registration Ser-
                vices addressed this growth with better internal
                organisation (deputy manager, better registry han-
                dler system, better internal documentation),
                increased automation (reverse delegation is now
                fully automated, ticketing system has been
                improved), and hiring more staff. The RIPE NCC is
                focusing on internal and external quality. During
                the last year the RIPE NCC did a lot of liaison
                work, specially related with the set up of the new
                Regional Internet Registry for the Americas ARIN and
                the possible new structure of the IANA.

                Administration Activities Summary: The administra-
                tive department was specially concerned with prepa-
                rations for the RIPE NCC association.  Much of the
                administrative work that was previously done at TER-
                ENA is now being moved to the RIPE NCC.

                Coordination Activities Summary: Database activity
                has been growing steadily and rapidly. The engineer-
                ing department is concentrating on keeping the
                database stable and providing better documentation
                for users. The department is planning on working on
                Routing Registry notification/authorisation imple-
                mentation, a database consistency project, working
                with the database security task force and RPSL
                developments. The department is also continuing work
                on the Test Traffic Measurement project.




                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 3
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

    Discussion:

                Growth:

                Kees Neggers (SURFnet) asked how the RIPE NCC will
                deal with the growth. Carol Orange answered that
                there are structural changes to deal with staff
                growth. For the database growth, the RIPE NCC is
                looking at the software and will restructure it to
                deal with growth (present software wasn't originally
                built for this kind of growth).

                Kees Neggers asked whether the changes can it be
                done in time for the growth without causing prob-
                lems. Carol Orange replied that the RIPE NCC is cur-
                rently coping with the growth and have a realistic
                plan to continue doing so. For the database re-engi-
                neering the RIPE NCC plans to work with consultants
                to do it more quickly rather than waiting to hire
                and train new staff.

    2. RIPE NCC Activity Plan & Expenditure 1998

                Document:
                http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-162.html
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-162.txt
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-162.ps

                Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet-
                ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/coco-act/

                Summary:

                Daniel Karrenberg gave a short overview of the docu-
                ment highlighting the changes from this year's
                activities, and the budget for 1998. The NCC expects
                a growth of 40% in the number of registries for
                1998. The RIPE NCC is planning to increase focus on
                reliability and quality.

    Discussion:

                Internal Quality Control:

                Dana Hudes (Graphnet) asked how the RIPE NCC will
                measure the improvement of quality? What are the
                service goals that are targeted?  Daniel Karrenberg
                replied that the measures are being developed at the
                moment. This is a very difficult thing to do because
                if you chose the wrong measures, like response time,
                quality actually goes down. The RIPE NCC has a pro-
                cess in place to develop measures that are useful-
                is a request being evaluated properly? what's the
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 4
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                level of complaints?  etc.. The measures that
                they'll choose have to be more deep than just
                response time.

                Paul Ridley added that the RIPE NCC will use Euro-
                pean Foundation for Quality Management Guidelines
                for Public Sector Model, which focuses on non-profit
                organisations. They are just starting on this activ-
                ity, and have started looking at critical success
                factors and what are the processes that achieve
                them. The RIPE NCC will publish the results once
                they're finished. They'll publish the measurements
                and the results.

                Growth:

                Wim Vink (EUnet) asked how the RIPE NCC will cope
                with the growth, will they have smaller groups
                internally? Also why such a large growth in adminis-
                trative department? Daniel Karrenberg answered that
                the general structure the RIPE NCC has established
                is sound and can cope with the expected growth.
                They will refine those structures as necessary.  In
                registration services there is now a deputy manager,
                in engineering there are smaller groups working on
                individual projects, however the overall line man-
                agement will remain same.

                As for the growth in the administrative department:
                It is understaffed at the moment, the RIPE NCC is
                taking over functions that have hitherto been done
                by TERENA. There are also new activities- Paul Rid-
                ley will do more content work such as participating
                in the TLD WG's activities.  The RIPE NCC will
                shortly hire an office manager who will take over
                day-to day office work from Paul. They also plan to
                have a training person, who will be responsible for
                all the organisational aspects of the training
                courses. In general the NCC is moving the day to day
                routine work away from the highly paid, qualified
                people.

                Database Growth:

                Igor Semenyuk (Sovam Teleport) commented that the
                current database growth rate might be a problem soon
                and asked whether the RIPE NCC is considering dis-
                tributing the database structure- geographically for
                example? Daniel Karrenberg replied that both the NCC
                and the RIPE Database WG have considered and
                rejected this option for the time being.  The
                database has a notary function for address space
                allocations and assignments; we have to be sure of
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 5
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                the state at any given point in time and have to be
                able to query it.  If it is distributed there are
                problems with authority, consistency & availability.
                That is why we have one central db which is dupli-
                cated at numerous points for redundancy.

                IPV6 Activities:

                Juergen Rauschenbach (DFN) asked whether the RIPE
                NCC is expecting large growth in IPv6 work in regis-
                tration services or in the database. Daniel Karren-
                berg replied that the RIPE NCC has been following
                the developments for years now.  There are two main
                questions: What are the addressing models that will
                be accepted?  There has been lots of discussion in
                IETF on this but no real answer to this question.
                And when will the European ISPs start to provide
                -pilot- services in this area?  The RIPE NCC will
                start with Ipv6 address space registration services
                as soon as required by the European ISPs.

                Euro ISPA

                Bridget Cosgrave (ETSI) asked what impact will the
                creation of the Euro ISPA have on RIPE NCC? Daniel
                Karrenberg answered that as far as he knew, the Euro
                ISPA is an European ISP Association that is cur-
                rently being formed on the initiative of some ISPs
                and the European Commission. If their activities are
                anything like the ISPA model from the UK it seems to
                be mainly a lobbying organization; therefore its
                activities are different from RIPE & the RIPE NCC.
                At the last meeting it was decided that the RIPE NCC
                will not engage in lobbying activities because the
                contributors are concerned that this would endanger
                the NCC's neutrality and impartiality.

                Last Year's Budget:

                Lajos Balint (HUNGARNET) asked whether the budget as
                agreed upon at the last contributors committee meet-
                ing still the expenditure for this year. Daniel Kar-
                renberg answered that last year's initial planning
                was correct. At the beginning of the year the RIPE
                NCC expected that they would need more money for an
                increased level of activities. At present they
                expect that the expenditure will be very close to
                the amounts that were budgeted originally, e.g. a
                total of 1984 kECU.

                Collection of Debts:


                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 6
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                Wim Vink asked whether the collection of debts has
                improved? Paul Ridley replied that collection has
                improved, the RIPE NCC has taken the last 2 months
                to focus on credit management; there was 50,000 ECU
                in debts from earlier years that were formally writ-
                ten off earlier this year, however the RIPE NCC
                still follows up on them and stop service if they do
                not pay.

                Dana Hudes asked whether if the registry still do
                not pay the NCC takes address space away? Daniel
                Karrenberg answered that address space is not
                leased, address space assignments are valid as long
                as the original reason for an assignment is still
                valid.  The RIPE NCC does not reclaim address space
                from end users unless there is a reason to believe
                that the original criteria for the assignment are no
                longer valid. You pay for registration services, if
                you stop paying you get no more services, but the
                NCC does not take away assigned address space.
                Starting to do that would would need a global policy
                change.

                Mirjam Kuehne added that if the RIPE NCC closes a
                registry for whatever reason, they take back the
                unused part of the current allocation, i.e. the
                addresses not yet handed out to end users. But any
                assigned address space remains assigned.

                Wilfried Woeber (ACONET) asked whether the RIPE NCC
                makes an allocation to a new registry before the
                money has shown up on the bank account? Daniel Kar-
                renberg answered that the RIPE NCC follows the gen-
                eral business practice of assuming that the other
                party will honour written commitments.  Therefore
                the NCC requires a signed service assignment which
                constitutes an obligation to pay the service fee.
                They then start services. The NCC can do that
                because they mainly deal with companies and not
                individuals, so usually the NCC can collect the
                debts. There is a registry set-up procedure that's
                documented on the web.

    3. RIPE NCC Charging Scheme for 1998 Presentation (ripe-163)

                Paul Ridley

                Document:
                http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-163.html
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-163.txt
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-163.ps

                Slides:
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 7
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                http://www.ripe.net/meet-
                ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/chg1998/

                Daniel Karrenberg summarises: The NCC proposes a 74%
                increase in expenditure for 1998 over 1997. This
                budget increase is mainly due to more activities
                being done and to the introduction of quality man-
                agement.  The number of contributors is expected to
                grow by only 40% Hence the NCC will have to raise
                the fees. They propose to use the 1997 charging
                model raising the sign-up fee back to the level of
                1996 because costs for new registries have
                increased. They also propose to raise the yearly
                fees roughly equally in all categories. Should the
                growth of customers be different from the expected,
                the expenditures will be adjusted accordingly.

                The yearly fees will be as shown (earlier years for
                comparison):


                        +-----------------------------------+
                        |       Charge   1998   1997   1996 |
                        +-----------------------------------+
                        | Yearly SMALL   2450   2200   1500 |
                        |Yearly MEDIUM   3400   3000   4500 |
                        | Yearly LARGE   4500   4000   8500 |
                        |                                   |
                        |      Sign-Up   2000   1300   2000 |
                        +-----------------------------------+


                Enterprises pay the same fee as a "Small" registry
                and Supernationals pay n times the "Large" fee.
                During 1998 the usefulness of these special cate-
                gories shall be investigated.


    Discussion:

                There was no discussion. Wim Vink commented that the
                fact that there has been no discussion is a confir-
                mation of the result of last year's work and thor-
                ough discussions. The RIPE NCC did good job of bal-
                ancing the various interests & implementing the
                charging scheme according to last year's discussion.

                     Decision: Both the activity plan
                     (ripe-162) and the charging model
                     (ripe-163) for 1998 are formally agreed
                     without amendments.


                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 8
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

    Discussion of Executive Board Election Procedure

                At this point there was a short discussion about the
                election of the executive board later on the agenda:

                Hans Petter Holen (Scandinavia Online) said that
                some of the candidates are not here today but have
                offered to present themselves; should we contact
                them and ask them to come? Paul Ridley explained
                that the fact that they are not here has no influ-
                ence, as they will not be asked to speak about them-
                selves. Kees Neggers added that you can be a candi-
                date without having to be here to present yourself,
                everybody had ample time to present themselves in e-
                mail.

                Dana Hudes asked, if candidates have not come to
                this meeting, how can you guarantee that they will
                come to other meetings. Paul Ridley explained that
                this meeting is only open to contributors, however
                the Executive Board is open to non-contributors.
                Therefore there are some nominees that were not
                invited to attend this meeting. If they are elected,
                they will be able to come to all such meetings in
                the future.

                Klaus Landefeld (NACAMAR) asked whether people who
                are not contributors should be on the board at all?
                Juergen Rauschenbach asked for an explanation of
                what the advantage is of having non-contributors on
                the EB?

                Kees Neggers said that there will be a presentation
                of the new structure and if it is agreed upon we
                will enter into the election & discussion of the
                procedures. These questions will be answered and
                discussed later.

    4. Report of the "New Structure" Preparations Group (ripe-161)

                Karel Vietsch (TERENA) presented.  Wim Vink, Paul
                Ridley & Karel Vietsch formed a committee last year
                to decide on the structure of the new RIPE NCC after
                it separates from TERENA.

                Document:
                http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-161.html
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-161.txt
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-161.ps

                Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet-
                ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/de-facto/

                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                  Page 9
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                Summary:

                The RIPE NCC will be incorporated as an association
                and take over the RIPE NCC activities on January 1st
                1998.  Karel presented the progress in the separa-
                tion of the RIPE NCC and TERENA. The new association
                will have a General Assembly (GA) of all the con-
                tributors, and an Executive Board (EB) of 3-5
                elected "natural persons". For the first two years,
                a TERENA appointed representative will serve on the
                EB and will have veto power the first year, because
                if the RIPE NCC association goes bankrupt, TERENA
                could still be held liable for the first year. There
                will also have a Treasury Committee that will audit
                the NCC's financial accounts.

    Discussion:

                Dutch Tax Laws:

                Dana Hudes asked why are Dutch laws giving the NCC a
                problem, can't they pick any other European country
                and set up the official organisation there? Karel
                Vietsch explained that the Dutch tax laws are not
                giving the NCC a problem, this will be explained in
                a later presentation.

                TERENA member on Executive Board:

                Cliff Stanford (Demon) asked why TERENA gets a seat
                on the Executive Board. Karel Vietsch explained that
                there will be liability for TERENA even after the
                separation, if the new organization goes bankrupt
                within the first year, TERENA can go bankrupt as
                well.  TERENA will have one member for two years,
                and will have veto rights for any decisions that
                will affect TERENA for one year.

                Wim Vink commented that it should be specified what
                TERENA can and can't do. Karel Vietsch explained
                that it will only apply to decisions that could lead
                to financial consequences for TERENA. Wim Vink com-
                mented that the activity plan has been agreed upon
                therefore there should not be any expenditures that
                will cause problem for TERENA. Karel Vietsch
                explained that there could be things that come up
                that are not in the activity plan, for example mov-
                ing to new office. Decisions have to be made about
                things not in activity plan.

                Wilfried Woeber added that there is also a require-
                ment that any execution of the veto has to be publi-
                cally documented and will be known to the General
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 10
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                Assembly with reason why. Daniel Karrenberg
                explained that limiting the veto right formally was
                discussed with legal advisors; they advised that it
                is difficult if not impossible to circumscribe a
                qualified veto right. There could be endless con-
                flict about it. Therefore the intention of the veto
                right is formally documented and a public justifica-
                tion is required when using it.  If the veto is
                used, the public will know about it.  That is the
                best protection.

                Cliff Stanford asked whether the General Assembly
                will have the right to remove the TERENA member.
                Karel Vietsch answered that they will, but TERENA
                will be able to replace the person

                Gordon Fielden asked whether if there's a decision
                made and TERENA vetoes it, the General Assembly will
                have right to overturn it. Karel Vietsch answered
                that the veto only exists to protect TERENA from
                liabilities, if the General Assembly would decide to
                do something extreme that would cause TERENA to go
                bankrupt, TERENA would still want to veto it without
                being overturned.

                Lajos Balint commented that this discussion is
                purely academic, the General Assembly can remove the
                part about having a TERENA member on the Executive
                Board.

                Hans Petter Holen commented that TERENA to achieve a
                certain goal is using the wrong mechanism, what TER-
                ENA should do is make a formal agreement with the
                new organization to ensure its financial security.
                Karel Vietsch answered that he would welcome alter-
                native proposals. What Hans Petter Holen is propos-
                ing is no protection at all. If this organization
                goes bankrupt, TERENA will have no recourse but some
                debtors like the employees may hold TERENA liable.

                Kees Neggers explained that one of the first things
                the new organisation will do is sign a contract with
                TERENA. But during the time that TERENA really has
                liabilities, TERENA needs some involvement. The only
                thing TERENA wants is a good, powerful RIPE NCC,
                they want to have a healthy future.

                Kurt Kaiser asked, whether, since it is a split, and
                there's a Dutch law about liability, would RIPE NCC
                be liable for TERENA if TERENA goes bankrupt? Karel
                Vietsch answered that no, liability is only from the
                TERENA side because TERENA is the existing organiza-
                tion, RIPE NCC is the new organisation that is
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 11
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                splitting off.

                RNA membership at the beginning of setup:

                Igor Semenyuk asked about the fact that the RNA will
                have zero members on day 1. Can a legal organisation
                can't exist without members? Karel Vietsch answered
                that at some point somebody will go to notary for-
                mally establish the association at that point the
                association will have zero members, but after it's
                officially set up, the present contributors can
                start signing contracts and become official members.
                Paul Ridley added that you can have an open organi-
                zation, decisions that cannot be made without the
                General Assembly but decisions made by Executive
                Board can be made because the Executive Board will
                be in place from the beginning.

                Igor Semenyuk asked whether the contributors can
                elect an Executive Board now without being members
                of the RNA? Paul Ridley explained that legally,
                that's not a problem.

                Need for a quorum:

                Klaus Landefeld asked whether there is any legal
                aspect in Dutch law about needing a quorum to vote
                in a General Assembly?

                Karel Vietsch answered that there is not. So it is
                completely up to us what we write into the laws of
                the new organization.

                Klaus Landefeld asked of the contributors what they
                want to decide on this. Kees Neggers commented that
                if you look at today's meeting, which is more impor-
                tant than previous meetings, there is only a small
                percentage present (less than 5 %). This is not
                likely to improve in the future. Karel Vietsch com-
                mented that if you have good discussion on the mail-
                ing lists and reach consensus electronically, it
                does not matter how many people show up at the meet-
                ings. In principle there is nothing wrong with hav-
                ing entirely electronic discussions.

                Cliff Stanford asked whether proxy voting will be
                allowed at the meeting. Karel Vietsch answered that
                this is not mentioned in in the proposal explicitly;
                It is open to discussion

                Appeals procedure:


                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 12
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                Gordon Fielden asked whether there is an appeals
                procedure. Daniel Karrenberg answered that the Exec-
                utive Board should not be the appeals board, there
                could be conflicts of interest. What the Executive
                Board should do is put the right procedures in
                place. Two months ago he circulated a proposal to
                start discussion on this. The proposal is for the
                General Assembly to decide on the appeal procces.
                One might have a pool of arbitrators approved by the
                General Assembly, when there is a conflict, each
                party would choose an arbiter from the pool and the
                two arbiters would choose a third. He has only got 2
                private reactions to the e-mail, there was no public
                discussion.

                Dana Hudes commented that the proposed structure is
                great idea, this is a structure that has been tried
                and has worked in the past. This idea is thousands
                of years old and it works.

                Gordon Fielden commented that there needs to be an
                appeals process from the beginning, not set it up
                later. Daniel Karrenberg answered that the NCC as
                been operating for 5 years and nobody has taken them
                to court, that is the appeals process now. All the
                conflicts they've had could be resolved.  He agrees
                that it is an important matter, but it is not a pre-
                requisite for proceeding. There was not much
                response to his earlier proposal.

                Kees Neggers commented that the appeals procedure
                today is to go to TERENA. That has not happened so
                far. The appeals power should be in a formal proce-
                dure. If the contributors elect an Executive Board
                today, they should do two things: Set up the new
                organisation and set up an appeals procedure. Paul
                Ridley answered that the first proper General Assem-
                bly meeting could approve or amend any procedures
                that are put in place before that time by the Execu-
                tive Board.

                Kees Neggers added that when we start the associa-
                tion and everybody signs a contract there needs to
                be an appeals process already in place. By signing
                the agreement, the contributors are agreeing to the
                appeals procedure.

                Dana Hudes commented that in the US they are start-
                ing to see ISPs that start litigation if they do not
                get their way. The appeals process should be manda-
                tory and part of service agreement. Kees Neggers
                agreed and said that that's why the process needs to
                be defined quickly.
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 13
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

    4 b. Financial Separation of TERENA & RNA (ripe-164)

                Presentation: Paul Ridley

                Document:
                http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-164.html
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-164.txt
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-164.ps

                Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet-
                ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/fin-sep/


    4c. Paul Ridley presentation: RNA tax position (ripe-165)

                Presentation: Paul Ridley

                Document:
                http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-165.html
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-165.txt
                ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-165.ps

                Slides: http://www.ripe.net/meet-
                ings/ripe/ripe-28/pres/taxposition/

                Summary: The two presentations covered the financial
                consequences for the split and the tax agreements
                that have been arranged with the Dutch tax authori-
                ties for the new RIPE NCC association.  No taxes
                will have to be paid for transferring the money from
                the TERENA bank accounts to the RIPE NCC accounts.
                It has also been agreed that the new RIPE NCC will
                not have to pay any company tax. The RIPE NCC will
                also have a personnel fund to pay employees'
                salaries for an x number of month in case of finan-
                cial problems. The NCC will not pay any tax on the
                personnel fund.

    Discussion:

                Personnel Fund:

                Gordon Fielden asked why a personnel is fund neces-
                sary. Isn't there some protection in the Dutch law
                to help employees if an organization goes bankrupt?
                Paul Ridley explained that the court may say that a
                person can get several months worth of salary, but
                if the company is bankrupt, the employees still get
                nothing. The employees are not necessary the first
                creditors.

                Kees Neggers commented that it's necessary to have
                protection that if the company is at risk, staff
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 14
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                does not decide to go away and find another job.
                This is to avoid people looking for another job
                because they feel unsafe. Daniel Karrenberg added
                that the NCC is not in the job of producing any-
                thing. The NCC's job security depends on Internet
                governance, if it is decided that the work the NCC
                is doing should be done another way, the NCC will
                have to stop its work, but there will probably be a
                period of several months for the transition.

                Gordon Fielden commented that there should be a
                limit to how far the reserves can go. Paul Ridley
                replied that there is a limit. There is a formula of
                x number of months salary for x number of employees;
                the x months is open to negotiation. The Executive
                Board can discuss this with the tax authorities.

                General Comments:

                Kees Neggers commented that the committee did a good
                job preparing the new structure There was agreement
                among contributors on this. Kees Neggers also added
                that the RIPE NCC also did a good job, we should
                thank the management & staff for their work. There
                was also agreement among contributors on this.


    5. Decisions about setting up of RIPE NCC Association

                Kees Neggers said that decisions about setting up a
                RIPE NCC Association need to be made now. The pro-
                posal is to set it up according to the structure
                described in ripe-161, any major proposals for
                changes?

                Gordon Fielden asked whether the contributors can
                decide on a temporary appeals procedure before vot-
                ing on the new structure.

                Kees Neggers replied that the proposal is to agree
                on the setting up the RNA, TERENA will do the legal
                work and the Executive Board will work with TERENA
                to implement the structure, that Executive Board
                will start working this afternoon. It is a substan-
                tial amount of work, so if there are no amendments,
                does everyone agree that the RIPE NCC will be incor-
                porated according to structure?

                     Decision: The de-facto structure for the
                     RIPE NCC Association is agreed as proposed
                     (ripe-161). TERENA is asked proceed with
                     formal incorporation of RNA based on this
                     structure.
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 15
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                     Decision: The RNA executive is asked to
                     define conflict arbitration procedure as
                     soon as possible and before Jan 1st 1998.

                     Decision: TERENA and the RNA executive
                     committee are asked to implement a smooth
                     transition of RIPE NCC services from TER-
                     ENA to RNA based on the principles set
                     down in the tax position document
                     (ripe-165) and the financial separation
                     document (ripe-164).


    6. Election of first RIPE NCC Executive Board members

                Kees Neggers announced that there is a full consen-
                sus that the new RIPE NCC Association will be struc-
                tured as agreed. Anything not implicitly said here
                at the meeting will be up to the Executive Board to
                decide on, TERENA will only listen. TERENA has
                decided to choose Kees Neggers to be the TERENA
                appointed member of the EB.

                Four additional members need to be elected.  Two
                will be elected for 3 year terms and two for 1 year
                terms.  Kees Neggers' mandate is for a two year
                term.  Everybody agrees to the voting proposal?

                There was general agreement.

                Election itself: Proposal is to elect the board mem-
                bers 1 by one, starting with members for 3 year
                term.

                Comment:

                Gordon Fielden commented that that EB members should
                only be contributors.

                Kees Neggers replied that the proposal now is that
                any person can be a candidate, it is up to the vot-
                ers to decide whether somebody is qualified.  If you
                make it mandatory that the person should be a con-
                tributor that is a change to the procedure.

                Daniel Karrenberg added that he strongly feels that
                it is better not to limit eligibility to the EB.
                There will always be a number of people who are
                widely respected and could make a good contribution
                to the Executive Board even though they might not be
                working for a contributor.  at the time of the elec-
                tion.  It's not a good thing to exclude in the by-
                laws somebody from serving just because they are not
                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 16
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                a contributor.  General Assembly members should vote
                on the people concerned and not on the principle.

                Dana Hudes commented that there are outstanding mem-
                bers of the community that could be on the Executive
                Board but it should be that the contributors should
                have representation, there should be a limit of how
                many seats can be filled by non contributors

                Wilfried Woeber replied that the contributors should
                be aware that if they want to have formal con-
                straints that somebody should be a contributor's
                employee then they will have to have a lengthy pro-
                cess. What if the representative is no longer
                employed by a contributor?  Will the person have to
                resign? etc.  The rules should be flexible and effi-
                cient.

                Klaus Landefeld added that usually board members
                should be named as person, not as organization, but
                it is unusual for Executive Board members not to be
                part of the association at all. Hans Petter Holen
                replied that it is too late to change this now.
                However, if it is decided that EB members have to
                work for a contributor, he would be happy to for-
                mally employ the people who have been nominated.

                Paul Ridley added that only members are allowed to
                vote, if the majority of the members decide to vote
                for only contributors, they can do that, but why
                exclude the option of having non-members if the Gen-
                eral Assembly decides to vote for them?

                Siegfried Langenbach (CSL) asked for a clarification
                on which non-contributors have been nominated. Kees
                Neggers answered that they are Keith Mitchell &
                Frode Greisen.

                Wim Vink suggested a vote on the subject.

                Gordon Fielden proposed the amendment that only con-
                tributors be eligible to the EB.

                4 votes for, all others against. The motion is dis-
                missed.

                Dana Hudes proposed the amendment that at least 2
                Executive Board members out of 5 members are working
                for contributors.

                2 votes for, 1 abstention,  all others against. The
                motion is dismissed.

                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 17
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                Nominees:

                Antonio Blasco Bonito, IT CNR
                Frode Greisen, DK EBONE
                Klaus Landefeld, DE NACAMAR
                Keith Mitchell, UK LINX
                Cliff Stanford, UK DEMON
                Martin Starnberger, LT TAIDE
                Wim Vink NL EUNET,
                Wilfried Woeber, AT ACONET



                The elections were conducted as follows.


                            +---------------------------+
                            | First 3 Year Position     |
                            +---------------------------+
                            |Antonio Blasco Bonito   1  |
                            |Klaus Landefeld         2  |
                            |Cliff Stanford          3  |
                            |Wilfried Woeber         4  |
                            |Frode Greisen           5  |
                            |Keith Mitchell          7  |
                            |Wim Vink                7  |
                            +---------------------------+



                               +--------------------+
                               |   Run Off Round    |
                               +--------------------+
                               |Wim Vink         10 |
                               |Keith Mitchell   17 |
                               +--------------------+


                     Keith Mitchell was elected for a three
                     year term.



                             +-------------------------+
                             |Second 3 Year Position   |
                             +-------------------------+
                             |Klaus Landefeld      2   |
                             |Cliff Stanford       3   |
                             |Wilfried Woeber      7   |
                             |Wim Vink             7   |
                             |Frode Greisen        8   |
                             +-------------------------+

                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 18
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

                     Frode Greisen was elected for a three year
                     term.



                            +---------------------------+
                            | First 1 Year Position     |
                            +---------------------------+
                            |Antonio Blasco Bonito   3  |
                            |Klaus Landefeld         3  |
                            |Cliff Stanford          5  |
                            |Wim Vink                7  |
                            |Wilfried Woeber         9  |
                            +---------------------------+


                     Wilfried Woeber was elected for a one year
                     term.



                            +---------------------------+
                            | Second 1 Year Position    |
                            |Antonio Blasco Bonito    4 |
                            |Klaus Landefeld          6 |
                            |Cliff Stanford           7 |
                            |Wim Vink                10 |
                            +---------------------------+


                     Wim Vink was elected for a one year term.


                All those elected accepted their election.


    Closing

                There being no further business the meeting was
                closed.













                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 19
                1997 RIPE NCC Contributors Committee Meeting Minutes
                                                        Paula Caslav
                                                   Preliminary Draft
                ____________________________________________________

    Appendix: Decisions of the Meeting

                The RIPE NCC Activity Plan for 1998 (ripe-162 ) is
                approved without amendments.

                RIPE NCC Charging Scheme for 1998 (ripe-163) is
                approved without amendments.

                The de-facto structure for the RIPE NCC Association
                is agreed as proposed (ripe-161). TERENA is asked
                proceed with formal incorporation of RNA based on
                this structure.  without amendments.

                The RNA executive board is asked to define conflict
                arbitration procedure as soon as possible and before
                Jan 1st 1998.

                TERENA and the RNA executive committee are asked to
                implement a smooth transition of RIPE NCC services
                from TERENA to RNA based on the principles set down
                in the tax position document (ripe-165) and the
                financial separation document (ripe-164).


                Executive board elections:
                Keith Mitchell was elected for a three year term.
                Frode Greisen was elected for a three year term.
                Wilfried Woeber was elected for a one year term.
                Wim Vink was elected for a one year term.
























                ____________________________________________________
                ripe-169.txt                                 Page 20
