[ppml] Revision to 2008-3
Josh King
josh at acornactivemedia.com
Wed Apr 2 02:43:20 EDT 2008
Owen DeLong wrote:
> On Apr 2, 2008, at 9:45 AM, David Farmer wrote:
>
>> On 2 Apr 2008 Owen DeLong wrote:
>>
>>> I absolutely think that it is vital to be more specific for this
>>> policy.
>> ...
>>
>> I have no problem being specific. I have a problem thinking that
>> you are
>> being specific by referencing sections of US Tax Code. First, its
>> not valid
>> outside the US. Second, it make ARIN policy changeable by the US
>> Congress, probably a bad idea on multiple fronts. Referencing a
>> 501(c)3
>> organization as an example of an organization that would likely meet
>> the
>> requirements is probably acceptable.
>>
> I was not suggesting incorporating the US tax code into policy by
> reference. I was attempting to make a brief statement to PPML
> which could be understood by the author in such a way that he
> could use it to develop policy language that would fit my requirements.
> Hence my reference to "501(c)3 or local equivalent".
>
> Personally, I am not yet convinced that community networks so much
> need a policy change as they need an appropriate fee structure that
> can recognize their "limited income" status while still treating them
> appropriately as an LIR in the ARIN structure.
>
>>> Here's a stab at a statement that describes what I feel should be
>>> included:
>>>
>>> To qualify as a community network under ARIN policy, the network must
>>> be owned and operated by an organization which is organized and/or
>>> chartered as a not-for-profit which is engaged in providing the
>>> service
>>> to the benefit of the local community at large and not limited to any
>>> subclass of the community by religion, union membership, pension
>>> status, or any other form of membership requirement other than if
>>> such membership is open to all members of the community with
>>> equal voting status and control of the organization at a cost
>>> which would not reasonably be considered prohibitive to any person
>>> living above the locally defined poverty level.
>>>
>>> This probably needs a lot of work, but, it's the best I could do
>>> without
>>> copying the tax code and I'm not willing to do that at 3:15 AM (which
>>> is the local time here at the moment).
>> I like what I see, no references to US Tax Code and personally I
>> don't think I
>> can complain about the specifics, however I do have a question and
>> some
>> scenarios for you to think about;
>>
>> So you are saying that a Community Network must be incorporated for
>> that
>> purpose? Or could other non-profit organizations incubate a Community
>> Network and then spin it out as a separate organization at a future
>> date, or
>> run it for ever as a D.B.A (Doing Business As).
>>
> I'm saying that the community network should be run by an organization
> which is chartered in such a way that the community it serves cannot be
> excluded from controlling the organization. I don't care whether the
> network
> is run by an organization chartered for that purpose or another
> organization,
> so long as whatever organization is in control is not the pet-project
> of some
> exclusionary group to the detriment of other members of the community.
> I don't believe my language prevents, for example, the Mormon church
> from
> creating an organization to run a community network. I don't believe
> that
> the organization needs to be incorporated, although certainly that makes
> it easier. However, the Mormon church would not be able to have
> exclusive
> control of the organization or the network, they would have to allow the
> community at large to join the organization and control the organization
> on equal footing.
>
>> I was thinking that maybe some other community based organization
>> should
>> be allowed to sponsor a Community Network and act as the legal
>> entity that
>> can sign contracts on it behalf, with ARIN, etc... I know several
>> Universities
>> and other organizations that are doing this or that have done this
>> kind of
>> thing in the past. In fact much of the early Internet worked this
>> way.
>>
> While that's true, I am not sure that such organizations need special
> treatment
> under ARIN policy to accomplish these goals. My bigger concern is that
> I don't want to start seeing "democrat-net", "republican-net", "abc-
> xyz-pac-net",
> "nazi-net", "jew-net", "mormon-net", etc. springing up under this
> policy and
> excluding community members that don't fit their idea of who should
> join.
> This is not intended as any slight or criticism (or support for that
> matter)
> of democrats, republicans, political action committees, nazis, jews,
> mormons,
> etc. I'll leave my opinions of those organizations for other fora.
>
>> A hypothetical example; let's say the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce,
>> wanted to sponsor the creation of a Minneapolis Community Network, and
>> basically started it as a D.B.A, community members run it, CoC is
>> simply
>> acting as the legal shell for doing business. And for sake of
>> discussion lets
>> say the CoC is organized as a 501(c)6, I have no idea if this is the
>> case or
>> not the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce might be a 501(c)3 for all I
>> know.
>>
> In general, any CoC has open membership. Additionally, the separate
> organization (DBA) run by the community members would be what I would
> count for policy purposes, even if it was the CoC that signed the
> documents.
> My concern is that for it to be a community network, management has to
> be
> open to all members of the community.
>
>> Another hypothetical example; let's say the University of Minnesota
>> wanted
>> to sponsor the creation of a Minneapolis Community Network, and
>> basically
>> started it as a D.B.A, community members run it, UMN is simply
>> acting as
>> the legal shell for doing business. And for discussion UMN is not a
>> 501(c)3,
>> it is a Constitutional Corporation of the State of Minnesota, making
>> it a
>> political sub-division of state government, in this case I know this
>> to be a
>> fact.
>>
> Again, my intent is to exclude the classifications that DO NOT qualify
> rather
> than to limit what is included. I think there is room in my proposed
> language
> for this to work, although I am perfectly open to language which does a
> better job of stating this intent.
>
>> Just to be clear these are completely hypothetical, at least as far
>> as I know,
>> Minneapolis has a Public/Private partnership delivering community WIFI
>> service already. And it is function as a LIR I believe, and not
>> really the type
>> of thing this policy is intended for.
>>
> Understood. I think that the goal here needs to be to identify
> organizations
> that are doing good for the community at large by building these
> networks
> and make sure that they can receive the resources that they need in a
> non-punative manner and that ARIN needs to find a way to recognize that
> the traditional ISP fee structure simply does not meet their needs.
>
> I've put a suggestion into the ACSP to try and address the fee issue for
> community networks. In fact, I put it in at almost exactly the time
> this policy
> proposal was submitted. Neither the author of the proposal nor myself
> knew of the other's work at the time we submitted our respective
> proposals.
> Personally, I think that the fee structure is the major issue, but, I
> agree that
> there could be a policy element to it as well, and, I'm trying to help
> develop
> that policy in such a way that it won't prevent the fee structure
> issue from
> being addressed.
That's funny. The most initial version of my proposal had mention of fee
structure, since due to my relative inexperience with this process I did
not realize that policy was not an appropriate venue for that
discussion. It was because of that correction that I removed ALL
reference to fiscal matters, which is why there is no mention of
not-for-profit status in the proposal. I'm glad to hear that there is
work on the fee structure progressing simultaneously. :) However I do
feel that there is sufficient reason for a policy addition as well as a
fee revision, such as:
-Many community networks span a sufficient area where they draw
connectivity from multiple links to upstream ISPs. For instance a
wireless mesh network may serve as a contiguous ad-hoc network providing
internal routing to multiple gateways. If nodes are numbered by
addresses assigned by the upstream provider, conflicts could arise
without partitioning the network, which would interfere with bandwidth
multiplexing and intranet services.
-Many such networks are dynamically scalable on cheap, consumer-grade
hardware. This means that these networks can grow arbitrarily large
depending on community participation. The ability to assign externally
routable addresses as opposed to the internal ones now used is, besides
being more architecturally pleasing, that it largely or completely
eliminates the need for NAT, which vastly increases the scalability when
you have gateways running cheap, low-grade hardware upon which the
resource strain increases exponentially with the size of the network
requiring address translation.
-Globally routable addresses help facilitate the interconnection of
various community networks worldwide, through projects like COMMONS
(http://www.caida.org/projects/commons) and Intercity VPN
(http://wiki.freifunk.net/IC-VPN).
-Most of all, I think it's important for these small organizations
serving communities to participate in this process in order to carve out
a niche for themselves as first-class internet citizens as systems
migrate to IPv6. By providing a process by which a community network can
acquire address space, I think it provides a useful path for
organizations that wish to provide services without placing themselves
on a competition footing with traditional LIRs/ISPs.
I agree with the addition of language to mandate that community networks
be run in an open fashion by not-for-profit community-driven entities.
Because I know of many such organizations which are not
fully-incorporated 501(c)3's in their own right, I don't know that it
should be more specific than that, but I definitely wouldn't want the
policy to be exploited.
>
>>> Owen
>>>
>>>
>>> On Apr 1, 2008, at 11:38 PM, David Farmer wrote:
>>>
>>>> I will add that 501(c)3 is only one, the most general and common,
>>>> form of a
>>>> non-profit organization recognized by USIRC, several other 501(c)
>>>> organizations could legitimately sponsor a Community Network,
>>>> including a
>>>> 501(c)6 Chamber of Commerce, 501(c)7 Recreational club, just to
>>>> name a
>>>> few other possibilities.
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)
>>>>
>>>> Further, I could easily see a city or other political sub-division
>>>> of government
>>>> sponsoring a Community Network too, and they are not covered by
>>>> 501(c) at
>>>> all. So even if you are only dealing with the US, I think
>>>> specifying 501(c)3
>>>> would not be a good idea. Then if you bring in other countries you
>>>> probably
>>>> can't be more specific than non-profit or not-for-profit.
>>>>
>>>> On 1 Apr 2008 Ray Plzak wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Owen,
>>>>>
>>>>> An observation. The ARIN region consists of more countries than the
>>>>> US, hence citing sections of the US tax code is probably not a good
>>>>> thing to do. I see that you have included the phrase "or local
>>>>> equivalent" but that is not necessarily clear. Perhaps, simply
>>>>> stating
>>>>> not for profit would be sufficient.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ray
>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net] On
>>>>>> Behalf Of
>>>>>> Owen DeLong
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 12:36 AM
>>>>>>
>>>>>> + IRS 501(c)3 or local equivalent not for profit
>>>>>> status
>>>>>> (501(c)5
>>>>>> should not qualify in my opinion).
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> =================================================
>>>> David Farmer Email: farmer at umn.edu
>>>> Office of Information Technology
>>>> University of Minnesota Phone: 612-626-0815
>>>> 2218 University Ave SE Cell: 612-812-9952
>>>> Minneapolis, MN 55414-3029 FAX: 612-626-1818
>>>> =================================================
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> PPML
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>>
>>
>> =================================================
>> David Farmer Email: farmer at umn.edu
>> Office of Information Technology
>> University of Minnesota Phone: 612-626-0815
>> 2218 University Ave SE Cell: 612-812-9952
>> Minneapolis, MN 55414-3029 FAX: 612-626-1818
>> =================================================
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> PPML
>> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the
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>
> _______________________________________________
> PPML
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--
Josh King
--
josh at acornactivemedia.com
--
Senior Network Engineer, Acorn Active Media
(http://www.acornactivemedia.com)
System Administrator, Chambana.net (http://www.chambana.net)
--
"I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal,
but because there is no such thing as a final goal." -Rudolf Rocker
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