http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/14031.html
Progress Breaks Out in Geneva
By Alyssa Katz
6:30pm 27.Jul.98.PDT
The pressure was on in Geneva
for those who hold influence
over the evolution of the
Internet. With just 60 days left
on the US government contract
with the organization that
manages domain names and
addresses, the whole future of
the Net's naming and addressing
system was on the table at a
conference late last week.
Held on Friday and Saturday, the
second meeting of the
International Forum on the White
Paper, or IFWP, brought together
more than 300 organizations
representing a broad spectrum of
interests. They came to debate
and refine the White
House-backed plan for shifting
oversight of domain names and
other administrative matters
from governmental control to an
independent, international
organization.
One significant decision emerged
from Geneva: Distinguished
individuals, and not
special-interest groups, should
govern over the new,
as-yet-unnamed organizational
body that will eventually take
charge of .com, .net, and the
others.
The meeting was sponsored by the
Internet Society as a conclusion
to its global INET 98 conference
and as a follow-up to a session
that was held in Reston,
Virginia, in early July.
According to conference
organizers, participants
generally agreed that the
organization's 15-member board
should consist of individuals
who have gained widespread
respect and trust in the
Internet community. The group
also agreed that representation
of specific interest groups on
the board should not be a chief
consideration.
Instead, the groups will have an
opportunity to participate in
councils working on specific
issues, such as domain-name
management, protocol
development, and IP (Internet
Protocol) address allocation.
Any decisions made by the
councils would be subject to
approval by the board.
By contrast, the proposed plan
for private Internet
coordination, known informally
as the White Paper, states that
"management structures should
reflect the functional and
geographic diversity of the
Internet and its users."
The proposal's architect,
special White House technology
adviser Ira Magaziner, won't say
whether he believes the newly
revised setup will be any less
responsive to the needs of the
larger Internet community. "What
I think is not important,"
Magaziner told Wired News. "The
important thing is what [plan]
consensus can be built around.
If the stakeholders build
consensus around this particular
structure, then why not?"
Magaziner, who publicly urged
the meeting's participants to
choose an interim board quickly,
made it a point not to
participate in any of the
conference's discussions.
He and others say they were
pleased to see previously
hostile parties -- particularly
Network Solutions, which
currently enjoys the exclusive
contract to provide the bulk of
domain-name registration
services, and its aspiring
competitors -- cooperatively
enter discussions on the
still-unresolved question of how
registration will operate.
Attendees debated whether a
central registry should operate
as a for-profit enterprise at
all.
Participants also discussed
competing ideas for funding the
corporation, with some
advocating a membership-based
structure and others calling for
a fee to be passed on whenever
an Internet domain is
registered.
Contrary to some fears, the
conference's European hosts did
not fight the decision to locate
the new organization in the
United States. "The movement
toward incorporation in America
is definite," said Internet
Society president Don Heath.
"[It's increasingly evident]
that it's starting not to be a
problem."
The eagerness of participants to
get on with the new Internet
order was perhaps exemplified by
Dr. Jon Postel, who has long
headed the soon-to-be-dismantled
Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority (IANA).
Postel came to the meeting with
his own proposed bylaws for the
new organization, which
conference-goers took to calling
the "New IANA" for lack of a
better name.
Even with the progress made, the
meeting still left many
questions unanswered: most
importantly, who will sit on the
interim board of directors. It's
expected that IANA will soon
float a list of likely
candidates, and that the spirit
of cooperation will take over
the effort from there.
And if that doesn't work? "We'll
be in for some interesting
chaotic times," says Heath.
The third and final meeting of
the IFWP is scheduled to take
place in Singapore on 12 and 13
August.
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