Here is the final text of the endorsement -- it's on its way to IANA
now. I included most of Bill's editorial changes (Thanks, Bill!):
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
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, two
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, and 2) no other entity
knows as much about the operational 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 incorporation 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 these meetings. This allowed talk about
work-in-progress, without prejudicing results for further meetings,
but did 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 reflected 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 participants 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 we
believe that these issues simply cannot be resolved in the time
available before the IANA corporation must be functional.
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 legally 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 the concerns
expressed in the draft Bylaws 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 juicier 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 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.
-- 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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