Not to wade into deep waters but we are in favor of the proposed billing structure that Jay laid out. To be honest we are just in favor of a model that allows the IX to collect enough money to be stable, remove the current uncertainty around the long term viability of the IX and not drive away members. I think it's worth saying that whatever model is chosen doesn't have to be the perfect and final model. Just one that brings in enough income to service maintenance and support costs we know are required to keep the lights on and start to build up some amount of reserve. It can always be adjusted in a year to account for the needs of exchange and its members and it likely will need to be adjusted every year to account for the actual monetary needs of the exchange and to establish the right run rate of cash on hand to allow for future hardware purchases for expansion. For instance of the donated switch is a 7504 there would logically be a future upgrade to a 7508 chassis and line card adds that need to be accounted for along with the uplift in yearly support costs that come with it.
I guess my question is this, is there a scenario where Jay's proposed pricing model would make using the exchange no longer financially viable for any the members that are following this thread? If so how and why and what specific change to his proposed model would change this? I hate to be the cold hearted capitalist here but I really don't want to see MICE fail because we death spiral on the details of the pricing model for another year.
Also just a big thanks to USI (and Arista?) for the donation. This is not a small amount of hardware. I'm a bit behind the curve but I'm assuming the IX has cleared the hurdles for proper federal non-profit status now? I only ask as we sure don't want to have to pay taxes on the value of a 7504 with blades next April if we aren't yet and thus would need to stall on taking actual possession of the equipment until non-profit status is achieved.