Should NSF declare victory and leave?

Tue Oct 29 20:00:46 UTC 1996

Hi,

>On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, William Allen Simpson wrote:
>> Anyway, I'd be very happy if Daniel could help us figure out a way to be
>> self-sustaining.  

That's easy: both APNIC and RIPE-NCC are self-sustaining, funded by their
membership who, by becoming members, gain a say in how the registries are
run (taxation, yes, since somebody has to pay to keep the registries
running, but with representation).

>>If the CIX wanted to offer a RIPE-style of services,
>> I'd be interested in participating!

CIX?  They claim to be an *international* Internet service provider trade
association.  As a home for the North American registry, this has the
following negatives:
	- forces CIX to provide a particular set of services to
	  North American members that CIX members from other regions
	  would not be able to take advantage of
	- as a trade organization, the CIX may take positions that
	  a particular member may not agree with (although the vast
	  majority of members do agree).
As such, I personally do not think the CIX would be an appropriate
venue.

>What about the ISP/C bylaws and member agreement? The ISP/C doesn't have
>some of the historical baggage that CIX has and is fairly open to what 
>its members want to do. 

My understanding is that ISP/C is also a trade association.  Since regional
registries are monopolies, they must be *completely* neutral with respect to
their membership.  A trade association traditionally takes positions for or
against particular issues and as such, can be seen to be non-neutral.

>If most everybody on this list joined the ISP/C I suspect that it would
>happen.

Perhaps I'm confused -- the community most affected by NSF taking the "Brave
Sir Robin" approach ("run away!" :-)) is the community who received the mail
you just sent.  Why should they join ISP/C?  Why not simply use NANOG?

>On the other hand there is something to be said for having this function
>in an entity separate from any trade association...

Yes, in fact I'd argue that the registry _cannot_ be a part of a trade
association due to concerns regarding conflict of interest and bias.

In any event, I would imagine a reasonable course of action would be along
the lines of:

a) The IP address registry portion of NSI is moved to an independent business
unit that is intended to be entirely self-sufficient (no cross subsidization
by the DNS side of NSI!).  NSI could act as a funding backstop while the
Americas Address Registry establishes its funding base (trust me: after my
experiences setting up APNIC, I'd say a funding backstop is *really*
necessary).

b) The AAR incorporates itself, preferably someplace not as lawyer happy
as the US and which can provide some relief from taxation.

c) The AAR institutes a funding plan based on the RIPE-NCC or APNIC funding
plans (with whatever modifications are necessary to correspond to the different
Internet environment in the Americas) with the understanding that the initial
funding plan is a bootstrap mechanism that can be modified at the first AAR
meeting.

d) Organizations which become members of the AAR by paying the appropriate
fees then meet and agree on necessary modifications to the funding plan,
registry operational issues, etc.  

For anyone interested, APNIC was set up in this fashion -- we are
incorporated in the Seychelles and are fully funded by our membership.  You
can find the APNIC By-Laws at ftp://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/docs/apnic-037.txt
and the APNIC Membership agreement at .../apnic-040.txt.

Regards,
-drc