The RIPE Chair Team reports on policy discussions around IPv6 stockpiling and NIS2, latest efforts to increase RIPE visibility, further steps to maintain accountability and transparency on RIPE mailing lists, and an array of recent industry events. And what's more, registration is open for RIPE 89!
RIPE 89 call for proposals and registration open!
The call for presentations for RIPE 89 in Prague is open and you can submit your proposals on the RIPE 89 website.
You can already find some useful information about the venue on the site as well as a link to the registration form.
Recent policy discussions
IPv6 stockpiling
The RIPE NCC is now prioritising the enforcement of policy requirements when evaluating IPv6 allocation transfer requests - based on a discussion during the Address Policy WG at RIPE 88.
This was a good example of the RIPE NCC staff bringing forward a concrete proposal which was welcomed by the community. We might see more such initiatives from the RIPE NCC.
Policy proposal 2023-04
After the RIPE Policy Proposal 2023-04 “Add AGGREGATED-BY-LIR status for IPv4 PA assignments” was approved, it has now been implemented by the RIPE NCC.
The "RIPE Policy Document IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region" has been updated accordingly and was re-published as RIPE document ripe-826.
EU consultations
The European Union (and other governments) are also working on new policies and regulations. Many of these are relevant to our community and possibly to your operations.
Currently, there is a draft implementation document for the NIS2 regulation that is open for consultation until 25 July. There is also an interim consultation on the design of Digital Europe, the EU's main funding instrument for the digital transition. Follow the Cooperation WG mailing list to receive updates.
RIPE documentation and visibility
Promoting RIPE and increasing our visibility has been one of our priorities over the years. A lot of information about RIPE is available on the ripe.net website and we published a series of RIPE governance documents that provide answers to questions such as: what is RIPE? How are decisions made? How can you participate? And why would you want to?
All this information is currently available on the ripe.net website, but it's not always easy to find and isn't necessarily all in one place. We're going to see how we can make this information more accessible. This will make it easier for new participants and will also be helpful when communicating with other stakeholders such as Law Enforcement Agencies and policy makers.
And to round this off, together with the RIPE NCC, we are working on a summary document that describes the relationship between the RIPE community and the RIPE NCC. A lot of documentation is already there, especially in earlier RIPE meeting minutes and RIPE documents (which is fun diving into if you are interested in the early days of IP network coordination in Europe). Now it's time to pull this together, update it, and identify any gaps or issues that need to be addressed going forward. We will publish a draft document as as soon as possible.
RIPE document store
While preparing for the activities described above, we looked at many RIPE documents and identified some inconsistencies and things that could be improved in the RIPE Document Store. For instance: do we have the right set of categories? And can we clean up some inconsistencies in the meta data such as authors and status? More on this topic in one of our next updates.
Website navigation
Another essential facet of disseminating information about RIPE is of course the RIPE website. After we updated our logo and the RIPE NCC redesigned the website, we are now looking at the navigation to further improve the visibility of the RIPE community and to make it easier to find community related information. You can find more information about this initiative in this RIPE Labs article by Ulka Athale.
RIPE List archives
When the RIPE Discussion List was put under moderation in 2022, the decision was made to create an "unmoderated archive" to keep the moderators accountable. This was done following the example of the RIPE NCC Membership Discussion list.
In addition to that, we also provided regular transparency reports at RIPE Meetings and on the website. After more than two years of experience with moderating the RIPE List, we reviewed the process and decided to limit the unmoderated archives to three months.
This time period should be sufficient to hold the moderators accountable and to identify any possible mistakes. In addition to that, our attention was brought to a message in the archives of the RIPE Discussion list that violated the RIPE Code of Conduct. This message was removed and replaced with a placeholder, just as was done for two other messages posted shortly after this one
Industry events
RIPE NCC Executive Board Meeting: On 24 - 25 June I participated in the RIPE NCC Executive Board meeting #176. I gave a short review of the recent RIPE 88 meeting and reported from other developments in the RIPE community.
ISOC Community Day: On 26 June, I participated in a session organised by the Internet Society. The bulk of the session was dedicated to a panel discussion featuring a group of speakers with diverse backgrounds. Nadia Tjahja who was representing YouthDIG said that often politicians want to solve a specific problem, but in the process they might loose track of the principles, vision and values that are underlying foundation of the Internet. Therefore the need to educate policy makers and regulators about the Internet is more important than ever. You can find the recording online.
ICANN webinar: On 2 July, I attended a webinar provided by ICANN on the current status of WSIS+20 and the Global Digital Compact (GDC). On first site, the latest version of the GDC (rev.2) shows improvements, especially in the explicit support of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). But a new phrase has been introduced: "multilateral Internet governance" which raises many questions and concerns about the future of the multistakeholder model. One speaker said that "sometimes seeing the words you want to see are not the best outcome. It is also the placement and context of the words in the document." The entire process is very opaque and one has to be a UN expert and be able to read between the lines.
ASO AC Meeting: On 3 July I attended a regular call of the Address Council of the ICANN Address Supporting Organization as an observer.
Upcoming Industry Events
RIPE NCC Webinar: On 16 July, Niall and I will participate in another RIPE NCC organised webinar called LIRs and the Internet Ecosystem. This will be a good opportunity to introduce the RIPE community and the RIPE Chair Team to new RIPE NCC members.
IETF 120: Later in July I will attend the IETF 120 in Vancouver, Canada. My main goal is to further bridge the IETF and the RIPE communities, learn more about the IETF newcomers and the IETF systems, and to follow some sessions related to community networks and sustainable and decentralised networking. More on that in my next update after the holiday season.
I wish you all a wonderful summer and hope to see many of you later this year.
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