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

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

At 7:06 AM -0800 1/29/97, Stephen Satchell wrote:
>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.

Disclaimer here that I am a network educator, and am writing a textbook on
addressing.  With those experiences, writing or coauthoring a couple of
addressing-related RFCs, and redesigning the IP address teaching method for
one major vendor, preparing _good_ educational materials is not a trivial
task!  I've worked for a large not-for-profit networking organization, and
we found that educational material development usually needed to be done by
our staff or by contractors.  We invited our members to contribute, but we
saw very little over several years.

>
>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.

I think that is a much more achievable goal.

>
>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.