The RIPE Chair Team Reports - Highlights from RIPE 85

This was our second hybrid meeting and we saw over 1,000 people registered throughout the week. The number of people who registered onsite and online was almost equal. It was especially great to see so many participants from countries who usually cannot attend RIPE meetings in person due to issues with visa or travel. This was also reflected in the programme of the meeting.

We also had a very high number of newcomers at the meeting and I dare say that initiatives such as our outreach to students, fellowship and mentorship programs, and the childcare at meetings is bearing fruit.

While we made good use of the pandemic by reviewing our governance and process documents, I felt that people are now keen to get some "real" work done. There were many active and constructive discussions during Working Group sessions. Here are just some topics that came up during the week:

• The state of the IPv4 address pool for IXPs (see ongoing discussion on the Address Policy WG)
• The decision to drop the policy proposal 2022-01 and to split it into smaller chunks.
• A continued discussion about IPv4 PA assignment registrations in the RIPE Database (see policy proposal 2022-02)
• The question if legacy address holders should be able to use the RIR RPKI services
• The possible need to review the transfer policy (see also Protecting Resource Holders in Distressed Areas)
• Various initiatives to address the recommendations made by the RIPE Database Requirements Task Force
• Best current practices for DNS resolvers (see below)

The RIPE Programme Committee put together a very interesting and diverse programme for the plenary session. You can find all slides and recordings in the RIPE 85 archives. It's been suggested to make better use of the content presented at RIPE meetings after the meetings. I am talking to the RIPE Labs editor to see what can be done so that this useful content is not gathering dust in the meeting archives. The community elected two new members for the Programme Committee. You can see the current list of PC members including their terms on the RIPE website.

BoFs

We also had a number of very interesting Birds of a Feather sessions. Especially the BoF exploring the impact of sanctions on Internet access and the BoF on the future of the community in Eurasia, both of which were very well attended. It was great to see so much engagement and constructive discussion. Unfortunately, I missed the Quantum Community Meetup as it ran in parallel. Please note the invitation to take part in the Quantum Internet Hackathon in December 2022.

New RIPE Task Force

At the Community Plenary, Shane Kerr presented a proposal for a new RIPE Task Force to come up with Best Current Practices for DNS resolvers. This will be a collaboration between the DNS and the Cooperation WGs with help from the BCOP Task Force. The Plenary welcomed this initiative and some volunteers already stepped forward. More information will be sent out shortly.

New RIPE Working Group Chairs

Shane Kerr's term as co-chair of the DNS WG ended at this meeting. Willem Toorop will be the new co-chair. At the IPv6 WG, Raymond Jetten's term ended and he was selected for another term. In the RIPE NCC Services WG, Rob Evans was selected for another term. You can find the co-chairs and their terms at the RIPE WG pages.

Before RIPE 86, we will be looking for new co-chairs for a number of WGs. If you are interested or if you have any questions about the role, please do not hesitate to contact me or the current WG co-chairs.

The Secret WG

A fun part at the end of the meeting is the presentation of the Secret WG, which has become a longstanding tradition. It's a great way to reflect on ourselves and to make sure we don't take ourselves too seriously. It's also part of actually creating and maintaining a community vibe. However, with so many new participants over the last few years, it became apparent that not everyone is familiar with this tradition. During the community plenary, we gave away a bit of the secret - but I hope this will encourage more participation in this fun community activity. Mary McKeon, one of our wonderful stenographers, contributed on the spot and created this poem (pictured).

RIPE Code of Conduct reporting process

The RIPE Code of Conduct Task Force published two new documents before RIPE 85. Based on the feedback received, the Task Force also published a RIPE Labs article clarifying some of the questions raised on the mailing list. The plenary talk in which Valerie Aurora compared the need for additional processes in a growing network with the need for additional agreements in a growing community was very well received and provided context and experiences with code of conducts in other technical communities. In the meantime, some participants stepped forward and volunteered for the future Code of Conduct team. The Task Force will soon publish updates of the two draft documents.

RIPE Nominating Committee Recommendations

In their final report (ripe-762), the RIPE NomCom made a number of recommendations that we started to work on earlier this year. Two recommendations are related to the documents describing the selection process and the formation and tasks of the NomCom itself. Daniel Karrenberg, former chair of the NomCom kindly agreed to make the necessary changes and sent the new versions to the RIPE List before RIPE 85. We will publish the draft documents on the RIPE website and issue a consensus call shortly.

RIPE mailing list moderation

As promised in my mail from 2 September, I presented the current status of the moderation and archiving of the RIPE Mailing list during the community plenary. There was a lot of support for the continuous moderation of the list. However, there are also concerns about the usefulness of the list in general and if people nowadays use other channels to discuss network operations. I will continue to listen to the community.

NRO NC/ASO AC

The Address Council of Address Supporting Organisation (ASO AC) met during the RIPE 85 meeting in Belgrade. The meetings are open for observers, and it was a good opportunity to meet the current ASO AC members. The minutes of these meeting are published. It is important to note that the Numbers Council of the Number Resource Organisation (NRO NC) also serves as the ASO AC. At RIPE 85, NRO NC elections took place: James Kennedy was re-elected for a three-year term.

Feedback

The feedback form is still open. We would very much like to hear what you liked and didn't like at the RIPE 85 meeting and if you have any suggestions for improvements.

Participants were generally happy with the meetecho platform and we saw a number of online presentations and WG chairs, which generally worked well. But we also received some feedback about how to improve the online experience. We are definitely going to take this account for the next meetings as we would like to include remote participants as much as possible.

I would like to give a warm welcome to the newcomers at the meeting and I hope to see many of you next time. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the RIPE Chair team or leave a comment under the article if you have any feedback or suggestions.