> From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
> 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.
////////independent IANA non-profit corporation
>
> 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.
>
That last (3) is a bit controversial. Actually, I urged incorporation
some time ago, but was told we wouldn't need it, that all this was taken
care of by having a chartering organization (IAB).... And then Postel
didn't get his RFC Editor and IANA charters written and published in 5
years. So much for "more time". Anyway, please drop that last clause.
> 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.
////////incorporation
>
> 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,
//ese /ed
> without prejudicing results for further meetings, but does not
////did
> 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
////////////reflected
> 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
/////participants
> 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.
/the remaining before existing IANA funding expires.
>
> 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
legally
> 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
//////community
> 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
juicier
> 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
constituted membership
> 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.
>
Not bad!
WSimpson@UMich.edu
Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 30 2000 - 03:22:35 PST