[ARIN-consult] Fee restructuring

[Jimmy Hess]

On 10/27/12, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> On Oct 27, 2012, at 6:40 AM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 10/27/12, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>>> On Oct 26, 2012, at 2:48 PM, Jo Rhett <jrhett at netconsonance.com> wrote:
>>>> On Oct 26, 2012, at 7:18 AM, Andrew Dul - andrew.dul wrote:
>>>>> On 2012-10-25 14:35, Owen DeLong wrote:

> I know of a number of community networks and other non-profit end-users
> for whom $100 is a burden they meet through the largess of a handful
> of their members donating to cover the ARIN fees each year. It is far

In other words, much like ARIN is a non-profit org that relies on cash
provided by resource holders to be able to pay ARIN's bills.

> which is inherently true. Many of these organizations operate on
> donated equipment and shoestring budgets.

Granted, but  donated equipment does not have a cost of $0.  It  just
means they have an external source of funding.

> and are located such that the electricity (and real estate) is basically
> donated. It's a lot easier to find donations of small amounts of space
> and electricity than cash.

So they aren't actually operating "with a small budget";  they are
just relying on other people to fund them  by  donating electricity,
upstream bandwidth, IP connectivity, and  removing expenses that
someone other than the org then still has to deal with.

> When the labor is donated and the staff are volunteers, those are
> pretty low costs.

Well,  in that case, what it means is the volunteers are paying  the
labor costs for the organization,  by waiving the wages they would
ordinarily be paid;  that is tantamount to a cash donation.

> Since I happen to believe that such organizations are useful and
> beneficial to the communities that they serve, I prefer not to encode
> such assumptions into ARIN fees or policies.

The assumptions will be true for over 95% of cases.

It would be an excellent thing (when resources permit) for ARIN to
donate some registry services to non-profit organizations that have
limited access to cash,  but  still have good need/justification for
IP space,  and  provide a meaningful benefit to the community.

By reducing, waiving fees,  or obtaining something other than cash in
exchange for ARIN services,  in those rare exceptional cases.


But the fee schedule for ARIN to recover its costs shouldn't be
designed around it.

> Owen
-- 
-JH