Summary

  • Mirjam Kühne co-authored RIPE-810 with Hans Petter Holen and Niall O'Reilly. Published in November 2023, it says RIPE NCC staff can join RIPE community work on the same terms as other participants.
  • When a discussion gives guidance to the RIPE NCC, the document asks staff to disclose their employer and avoid steering the direction of that guidance. Kühne presented the first draft and opened its initial last call.

Imagine a meeting where the best person to explain a registry operation works for the registry. Everyone wants the answer. A moment later, the room is deciding what that same organisation should be asked to change. The expert still has a seat; the chair needs everyone to see which hat the expert is wearing.

Mirjam Kühne helped put that moment into RIPE-810. The document has three authors: Kühne, RIPE NCC managing director Hans Petter Holen and RIPE Vice Chair Niall O'Reilly. It gives staff two clear instructions. They may participate in RIPE activities like anyone else. When the community is providing guidance to the RIPE NCC, staff should identify their position and avoid directing the guidance. Their knowledge remains in the room; the community keeps the pen.

The rule grew from a 2020 nominating committee recommendation to document how the community and its service organisation relate. RIPE-810's own history supplies the working dates. Kühne presented an initial draft on 4 May 2023 and opened a last call on 9 June. Denis Walker intervened in July; O'Reilly committed to revising the text, opened a second last call later that month, and announced consensus on 4 October. Andy Davidson also intervened. The RIPE NCC published the final document on 3 November. That chronology matters: this was a negotiated sentence, not a chair's memo dropped on the table.

The underlying problem is almost comically symmetrical. RIPE NCC staff know the systems that RIPE discusses, and RIPE's working groups often need their expertise. RIPE also provides guidance to the RIPE NCC. Without a visible role distinction, an employee can appear to help write the advice their employer receives. RIPE-810 addresses that precise scene with disclosure and restraint, rather than sending the experts outside to wait in the corridor.

The later RIPE-838 relationship document widened the frame. Daniel Karrenberg wrote it after the RIPE Chair asked for a record of the relationship's status quo. It describes RIPE as an open community of individuals and the RIPE NCC as a member-funded association supporting that community and operating the regional registry. Kühne and O'Reilly supplied substantial comments on early drafts. At the RIPE 90 community plenary, Kühne reported that the Chair team had declared consensus on the document. The two texts fit together: one describes the institutions; the other tells a participant how to behave when the institutions face each other across a table.

Kühne's first draft did something small with a large consequence. It let institutional knowledge circulate without letting an employee's presence quietly become the community's instruction. At the next meeting, the practical test fits in one breath: tell the room who employs you, give the facts, and let the room decide what it wants to say.