[PDB-gov] [PDB-announce] PeeringDB survey with regard to the future of PeeringDB
Arnold Nipper
arnold.nipper at de-cix.net
Fri Aug 7 07:46:07 PDT 2015
On 07.08.2015 02:28, Daniel Golding wrote:
> See inline...
>
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 8:13 PM, Chris Caputo <ccaputo at alt.net
> <mailto:ccaputo at alt.net>> wrote:
>
> I think everyone involved is trying to work from a place of logic and
> transparency.
>
> Some things to ponder...
>
> Who are the PeeringDB stakeholders?
>
> - admins?
> - individual users?
> - organizational users? (networks? IXes? datacenters?)
> - donors?
> - ???
>
>
> I suspect networks, IXs, datacenters are the primary stakeholders and
> will likely be the largest donors.
>
Theoretically IX information is not longer part of PeeringDB because
meanwhile IX-F DB is _the_ authoratative source for IX information.
PeeringDB only refers to IX-F DB.
Nevertheless IXs as well as IXPAs as well as IX-F probably have a vital
interest that PeeringDB works properly.
Best
Arnold
>
>
>
> Who should be the Members (the group that elects the Board) of
> PeeringDB?
>
> - admins?
> - individual users?
> - organizational users? (networks? IXes? datacenters?)
> - donors?
> - ???
>
>
> This is tough and there needs to be input from the community. Does
> membership tie into financing? Are people willing to pay another
> membership fee? Is there a huge risk by just requiring people to sign up
> and not pay anything?
>
>
>
>
> How is Membership determined?
>
> - free?
> - fee?
> - service?
> - qualifications?
> - ???
>
>
> "Service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?" /s
>
>
>
> If part of another organization, how would the interests of the
> stakeholders be maintained?
>
>
> Either the stakeholders would have to be confident in the organization
> or there would have to be a mechanism to ensure that its constituency
> has a strong voice. I think different organizations have managed to pull
> this off.
>
>
>
> Would donors who have a problem with or are not a member of a parent
> organization be dissuaded from donating to a sub-account devoted to
> PeeringDB?
>
>
> Earmarking funds is a common mechanism. Of course, picking a parent
> organization that is not particularly controversial would be important.
>
>
> How would a parent organization deal with and absorb the potential
> liability that comes from operating PeeringDB? An example of that
> liability being when a spammer harvests from the PeeringDB database and
> gets shut out, they could sue the organization. Or even if they
> don't sue,
> will they withdraw support from the parent organization or cause
> problems.
> How will that impact future decision making in the interests of
> PeeringDB
> versus the parent organization?
>
>
> This is actually the benefit of being part of a larger organization. Its
> trivial to sue a PeeringDB-Inc with minimal assets - almost anyone could
> do it and you would just need to outspend PeeringDB-Inc. The reason why
> other organizations like ARIN have large warchests is to forestall this
> - those large pockets might look attractive, but they hire lawyers.
> Professional staff is also important - a lawsuit against volunteers is
> pretty easy, but when you have dedicated staff its easier to defend
> yourself.
>
>
>
>
> The answers to the above are challenging. It is thought by some
> stakeholders that organizing into an independent organization is a clear
> solution, and that there are enough financial supporters out there who
> have expressed support and agree, to make it worthwhile. Obviously,
> there
> are others who disagree.
>
>
> Is there a list of those who have pledged support with amounts? If the
> commits are "hard" and the list is long and trustworthy, then you will
> have answered one of the important questions without any real debate.
>
>
>
> Re Membership questions posed above: At present there is no good answer.
> There's a desire to avoid membership fees. There's a desire for
> representation of both users and admins. The thought by folks working on
> independent organization effort, so far, was to have an initial
> membership
> consisting of the initial Board of Directors. The idea being that these
> individuals (*) are trusted enough by the PeeringDB community to steward
> PeeringDB from its present state to one of being legally organized
> and on
> a path toward tax-exempt status. The initial Board can then revise the
> Bylaws to be more inclusive.
>
>
> Why avoid membership fees? A _nominal_ fee can be a very handy tool
> against trolls infiltrating the organization.
>
>
>
> It could be this should be re-examined in the interest of transparency,
> legitimacy, and securing a mandate. Maybe PeeringDB voting Membership
> could be defined simply as those subscribed to the pdb-gov
> (http://lists.peeringdb.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pdb-gov)
> mailing list
> with active PeeringDB accounts. From there, drafts of Articles & Bylaws
> can be evolved, along with nominations of initial Board members to be
> listed on the Articles. I think all of the proposed Board members are
> happy to step aside in favor of those who receive greater support
> from the
> community, myself included.
>
> But the first question is, do we organize independently? Hence the
> survey.
>
> Chris
>
> *: Aaron Hughes, Matt Griswold, Patrick W. Gilmore, Richard A
> Steenbergen,
> and myself.
>
> Disclosure: In 2014, Patrick retained me to help get PeeringDB organized
> into a non-profit U.S. IRS 501(c)(6) due to my experience with the SIX
> (Seattle IX). He asked me to do so by being a Board Member and
> Secretary/Treasurer of the proposed organization. Not expecting this
> process to take so long or be divisive, I put those positions on my
> Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. I hope doing so did not cause additional
> confusion or appearance of presumption. They have now been removed.
>
> On Thu, 6 Aug 2015, Daniel Golding wrote:
> > Peering DB Community,
> >
> > Just to provide some additional color from one of those who
> believes more
> > transparency and logic should be applied to the situation....
> >
> > A number of us in the community are skeptical of the need for yet
> another
> > organization with resulting overhead (which is significant). In
> addition,
> > there is concern regarding the initial makeup of any proposed
> PeeringDB
> > board - namely, that it may not be representative of the largest user
> > groups and potential contributors to PeeringDB. There is concern
> about the
> > degree of transparency to this point - that most decisions are
> being made
> > on a closed "admin-only" list.
> >
> > PeeringDB will be funded, theoretically, by contributions or
> memberships.
> > For this reason, its vital that the Board be representative of the
> > potential contributor base, as well as absolutely free of potential
> > conflicts of interest.
> >
> > Of course, one way to avoid these unpleasant issues is to
> associate with
> > another, better funded organization, to operate in a semi-autonomous
> > manner.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Daniel Golding
> >
> > Disclosures: I work for Google and we have a vested interest in
> the success
> > of PeeringDB. I am Chair of NANOG, and NANOG is one of the choices
> on the
> > Survey, but I'd be just as happy to see this activity under OpenIX
> or the
> > Internet Society.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 12:05 PM, Aaron Hughes <aaronh at tcp0.com
> <mailto:aaronh at tcp0.com>> wrote:
> >
> > > Fellow PeeringDB Community,
> > >
> > > It has come to our attention that several community members
> believe more
> > > transparency and logic could have been applied to the initial survey
> > > regarding where PeeringDB functions should live. We respectfully
> request a
> > > poll from the community with a more formal survey in order to
> keep with the
> > > spirit of PeeringDB transparency and bottom up.
> > >
> > > PeeringDB has been operating for years with no official
> corporate umbrella
> > > or liability protection. There has been much discussion in
> recent months
> > > about officially organizing into an IRS non-profit, so that
> users may
> > > contribute funding and be assured that their contributions will
> best serve
> > > PeeringDB's evolution.
> > >
> > > Please review and complete the following survey:
> > >
> > > https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZDM6RNK
> > >
> > > This survey will close on 15, Aug 2015 2359h UTC
> > >
> > > Sincerely,
> > >
> > > PeeringDB Admins
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Aaron Hughes
> > > aaronh at tcp0.com <mailto:aaronh at tcp0.com>
> > > +1-703-244-0427 <tel:%2B1-703-244-0427>
> > > PGP Public Key ID: 0xF6B1DEC2
> > > Key fingerprint = 6486 43A5 1692 502C DCFC 8446 C714 E317 F6B1 DEC2
> > > http://www.tcp0.com/
> > >
> > > Request a meeting with me: https://doodle.com/aaronh
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Pdb-announce mailing list
> > > Pdb-announce at lists.peeringdb.com
> <mailto:Pdb-announce at lists.peeringdb.com>
> > > http://lists.peeringdb.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pdb-announce
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dan Golding | Data Center Strategy | Global Network Acquisition |
> > dgolding at google.com <mailto:dgolding at google.com> | +1
> 202-370-5916 <tel:%2B1%20202-370-5916>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Dan Golding | Infrastructure Engineering and Strategy |
> dgolding at google.com <mailto:dgolding at google.com> | +1 202-370-5916
>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Pdb-announce mailing list
> Pdb-announce at lists.peeringdb.com
> http://lists.peeringdb.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pdb-announce
>
--
Arnold Nipper
CTO/COO and Co-Founder
DE-CIX Management GmbH | Lindleystrasse 12 | 60314 Frankfurt am Main |
Germany | www.de-cix.net | Phone +49 69 1730902 22 |
Mobile +49 172 2650958 | Fax +49 69 4056 2716 |
arnold.nipper at de-cix.net | Geschaeftsfuehrer Harald A. Summa |
Registergericht AG Koeln HRB 51135
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