Re: PAB revised draft endorsement

From: Javier SOLA (jsola@aui.es)
Date: Tue Sep 01 1998 - 14:33:09 PDT


ok by me.

Javier

At 10:02 1/09/98 -0700, you wrote:
>This one incorporates some comments from Bill Simpson and others
>
>Statement by the gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body concerning the IANA
>draft Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation:
>
> The gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body welcomes the announcement by IANA
> of the third draft of the draft Bylaws and Articles of
> Incorporation, and endorses them as the basis for creation of the
> new IANA.
>
> PAB further wishes to express its appreciaton for the effort
> undertaken by IANA to act as a "fair broker" for consensus among
> stakeholders. It is clear to all objective parties that no single
> group currently represents the consensus of all stakeholders in the
> Internet. And, while IANA itself is not immune from bias, three
> characteristics make it uniquely suited to act as a "fair broker":
> 1) it has a long and respected history that gives ample proof of its
> ability to act in a fair and impartial manner, 2) no other entity
> knows as much about the operational requirements for the new IANA,
> and 3) no other entity has spent more time in intelligent
> consideration of the requirements for the new IANA.
>
> One of the stakeholder forums is the International Forum for the
> White Paper (IFWP). This process has, for the last two months,
> brought together a significant number of stakeholders of the
> Internet from around the world, and has facilitated discussion of
> some of the most important issues regarding the redesign of IANA.
>
> As suggested by Tamar Frankel, facilitator of the IFWP process,
> consensus search has been carried out in small break-out sessions,
> but generally, consensus has not been pursued in the plenary
> sessions of this meetings. This allows talk about work-in-progress,
> without prejudicing results for further meetings, but does not
> provide a mechanism for aggregating consenus.
>
> However, many of the results of the IFWP do seem to reflect clear
> consensus of the Internet Community, and we believe they have been
> correctly understood by IANA and incorporated in the Third Iteration
> of the Bylaws.
>
> An important area for which there has been wide agreement was that
> there be some kind of membership organization associated with the
> new IANA, with at least some directors elected from a general
> membership. Some camps insist that the membership should be of
> individuals only; others insist that only organizational membership
> be allowed.
>
> The draft Bylaws defer implementation of such a structure, citing
> several significant difficulties with various implementations of a
> membership organization. It is also worth noting that the
> controversies alluded to above would have to be resolved, and IANA
> feels (rightly, we believe) that these issues simply cannot be
> resolved in a time frame consistent with what is required.
>
> PAB is uniquely suited to comment on this matter. It is, in fact, a
> membership organization. It has no financial requirements for
> membership, such as dues or membership fees, but does require a
> signature on a legal document. Only legal constituted organizations
> can be members, but, because there is no financial requirement, very
> small organizations, such as sole proprietorship businesses, have
> joined.
>
> PAB has little real power, and has not existed for even a year, yet
> it has already experienced what can fairly be called a takeover
> attempt. This illustrates without a doubt that IANA's concerns are
> well founded, and implementation of a membership organization would
> have to be done very cautiously. An open membership organization
> with significant power would be a much jucier target than PAB, and
> in particular, direct membership with proxies would be an open
> invitation for manipulation.
>
> That being said, the very existence of PAB is predicated on the
> worth of membership organizations. We note that the proposed
> structure of IANA includes half the directors being selected through
> Support Organizations, with the remaining half selected at large
> through some as yet undetermined process. If that process were some
> sort of election conducted by a carefully constructed member
> organization, with legal binding on the members, the model would be
> very close to the PAB/POC model. We encourage IANA and the interim
> board to consider this very seriously, and we look forward to
> working with them on this matter.
>
>
>
>
>--
>Kent Crispin, PAB Chair "No reason to get excited",
>kent@songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke...
>PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
>http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html
>
>



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