Defining the RIPE Compact

Back in April, I published an article on RIPE Labs called “Building a Stable Future for the RIPE NCC.” A BoF on this topic was then held at RIPE 88 back in May. The BoF was attended by around 200 people, and the outcome was also discussed during the Community Plenary at the meeting.

In these sessions, RIPE community members shared their thoughts on the "RIPE Compact", which is the agreed-upon relationship between the RIPE community and the RIPE NCC, including how the RIPE NCC works and what values it stands for, based on foundational documents like RIPE-161. While many people expressed support for the general values and organisational structure of the RIPE NCC, several shared concerns about the specifics of how the RIPE NCC conducts certain processes, about where it places focus and about how it should best manage the resources the RIPE NCC is responsible for. In short, it seemed that the audience had many of the same concerns identified in my last article.

So, in this article, I’d like to start with a roadmap of proposed next steps. As part of the first phase of that roadmap, I want to clarify the problem statement and define a mission statement for the RIPE Compact.

Roadmap

As Malcolm Hutty captured this perfectly during the Community Plenary, I’ll just restate his proposed roadmap here:

Phase 1 (we are here): Understand and document the key features of our current situation, including potential challenges and pain points. We need to first understand where we are in order to know where we should go. This article will go into more depth on this phase in the next section.

Phase 2: Conduct a deep dive into the issues identified in phase 1, not to come to a decision just yet, but to ensure we are aligned on what is going on and the vocabulary we will use to describe things. In our RIPE Compact, we have expressed a number of values. We need to determine if these values still express what we want them to, and find better words where needed. And we need to find the right words to express the challenges we are facing.

The outcome of this could be a report covering our common vocabulary. This document could then be reviewed, after which we should check to see if there is consensus in the community about the problems we have identified. We will also need to agree on the best approach to address them.

Phase 3 (and beyond): Here, we will be ready to start looking for solutions. We don’t need to get too prescriptive about what this should involve at this stage.

The problem statement

As I said in my previous article, the underlying question we need to answer is, “Are we still fit for purpose?”

A lot has changed since the RIPE NCC was founded. Our membership has vastly expanded. The landscape in which we operate has changed, with significantly more regulatory requirements and more stakeholders we are accountable to, including governments and law enforcement. And financial risks have increased as the value of the resources we are responsible for has grown.

Our corporate structure was originally designed for a far smaller number of contributing members and a correspondingly smaller staff. Our workforce, and even the size of our Executive Board, has had to increase to keep pace with the ever-growing demands of managing these increasingly valuable and scarce resources and serving a larger membership. Our mandate has expanded as well. While our Registry work is still the heart of our organisation, we have worked to strengthen Internet infrastructure, routing security and overall digital capacity and education throughout our service region, and our role has become even more critical as we have a larger impact on the Internet ecosystem.

Now is the time to step back and re-evaluate our structure as an organisation and our relationship with the RIPE community to see how we can best position ourselves for the future, even if it means some growing pains. This is especially important as the RIPE NCC prepares to develop a new five-year strategy from 2027-2031.

The RIPE Compact mission

The mission we have agreed on so far is: Enable our community to operate one, secure, stable, resilient, global Internet.

This entails:

1. A trusted, efficient, accurate, resilient Registry acting as a steward for the global Internet number space
2. Bottom-up governance of the community and the Registry
3. An open, inclusive and engaged RIPE community
4. Insightful, reliable, impartial and timely data about the Internet and its operations

All of this also requires a stable organisation with robust governance and a diverse and competent staff.

That’s our starting point. Do you agree with the problems I’ve identified? Are there others I’ve missed? Share your thoughts on the RIPE Discussion mailing list (ripe-list@ripe.net). We can then discuss your input in an Open House session. Let’s find the right words here so we can start preparing for the future.