Confusing Name Space with Address Space and Technical routing issues, and the LAND RUSH of '97.

[Stephen Satchell]

At 10:23 PM 1/28/97, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote:
>Rather than get too far off the track in politics -- which, as Rep.
>Gingrich has demonstrated, is a Bad Idea for a not-for-profit, there very
>well may be a need for ARIN to take on an education function.  If it does,
>that needs to be considered in the mission and budget.


I believe that including education in some form in the charter is a
wonderful idea, and one that doesn't add a huge burden in terms of cost,
overhead, or staff.  Much of the educational materials can be prepared by
the (volunteer) Board of Trustees, Board of Advisors, and other interested
parties so that the cost of preparation is nil to ARIN.  Integrating that
information into the Web site for ARIN should be trivial, and would
constitute the backbone for the more informal "How To Get Allocations"
information that should be central to the site.

It would also mean that the rationale for the existance of ARIN would
become a living document (not just a FAQ) that could be written to be
understood by technical and non-technical alike.

For this reason, I'd like to propose that the fee for membership in ARIN be
more flexible to encourage this sort of thing.  Time and expertise is more
valuable to a not-for-profit than money, because contributions of time and
effort means that a function gets done and the organization doesn't have to
raise money to cover the expense of getting that function done.  Every
member has to cover the cost of servicing the member, but anything above
and beyond should be able to be paid in sweat equity.

---
Stephen Satchell, Satchell Evaluations
<http://www.accutek.com/~satchell> for contact and other info
Opinions stated here are my PERSONAL opinions.