Beer and Gear surprise

Thu Feb 22 16:08:56 UTC 2001

Why would someone need to buy Merit?  Nanog doesn't belong to Merit, does 
it?  Funny, I though it was the North American Network Operators' Group.  
Doesn't that imply that it collectively belongs to those of use that 
consider ourselves operators?

I don't think people are getting it.  It's not about the vendorwear that was 
eliminated.  My point is that someone made a decision about the meeting 
without even informing the people that were going to attend the meeting 
beforehand.  There was no discussion about it beforehand, no information 
afterwards, and no mention of it when we signed up for the meeting.  The 
only notification that I saw was a addendum to the charter dated November 
2000 which was as long as the original charter.

My question, I guess, is this:

1)  What does Merit do for Nanog?

Looks to me like they help organize the meetings (Which are funded entirely 
by registration fees and vendor donations, and are supposed to be organized 
by the hosting organization), host the web site (which has little content on 
it) and host the mailing list.  Am I missing anything else?

2)  What gives Merit the right to make decisions about the group without 
consulting the membership?

(Hint:  It's not in the charter, or anywhere else I could find)

3)  If Merit is not listening to it's membership, and is only providing the 
web page and mailing list, is there a reason why they are still hosting 
NANOG?

(Hint:  It's not in the charter.)

I would propose one of the following:

1)  The NANOG Charter needs to be revised into a more inclusive charter 
which includes the resolution of conflicts within the membership, review of 
the officials actions by the membership and removal of officials by the 
membership in the event that the actions are in conflict with the membership 
or charter.  There should also be included, in the charter, how to revise 
and amend the charter.  In this option, Merit would still be the ruling 
body.

2)  Remove Merit from the ruling body.  There is no reason, today, that the 
web site and mailing list could not be hosted by someone else.  I do not 
believe that Merit is doing a bad job, but there isn't that much work 
involved in providing this service.  The charter states that meetings are to 
be organized by the hosting company.  I don't see a reason why this could 
not continue.  The charter will still need to be resizes, however to include 
the items from option 1

3)  Continue to live under the rule of a ruling body that does not consult 
of inform it's membership or decisions that affect the membership and 
meetings.

Merit is under no obligation, at this point, to continue to offer services 
to NANOG, and the membership has no recourse of action under the current 
charter.

I don't want to play politics, but I think something needs to be done.

UK

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