-----Forwarded message from Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>-----
On Wed, Nov 19, 1997 at 07:08:51AM -0500, Antony Van Couvering wrote:
> Dear PABers,
>
> I second the nomination of Kent Crispin as PAB Chair. I have worked with
> Kent and know him to be a tireless advocate of shared registries and other
> positions of the gTLD-MoU that promote equal access and fairness. He has
> an excellent technical knowledge of the issues involved, and has been
> working on these issues for many years now. As a result, he is personally
> acquainted with many of the key players, which will help him immensely in
> promoting the PAB position. His mature and considered demeanor and his
> keen intelligence are just what the job calls for.
>
> I have not talked with Kent about this, but I am sure that if he accepted
> the position he would take his duties seriously and help to make PAB a
> strong and independent voice in these discussions.
>
> Antony Van Couvering
I accept the nomination. Thank you for the kind words.
I've given considerable thought to this, since Dan mentioned my name
about a week ago -- it's a non-trivial committment of energy and
time, and my life in the physical world has been making it's demands
lately.
But I believe quite strongly in the importance of PAB, so I am willing
to make that committment.
Here's a brief description of my background, and goals, should I be
elected:
Background:
I work a day job as a "Computer Scientist" (that's my job title) at a
US government research lab. Evenings and weekends I run a very tiny
Web presence/consulting business called "Songbird". Songbird started
about 15 years ago as a one-person company developing music software,
and eventually transitioned to it's present form. The name "Songbird"
is a registered Service Mark, so I have a more than passing direct
personal experience with trademarks.
I have been involved in the DNS wars for a fairly long time. I have
written several drafts and papers on various topics, and I developed
an actual working shared-registry system prototype. And, like many
others, I have expended literally hundreds of hours of thought and
energy in this process.
Goals:
1. Charter
PAB is still defining itself, and the relationships between it, POC,
and CORE are all very embryonic. Furthermore, the center of effort at
this time is getting the CORE registries off the ground. Therefore,
at this time I favor an informal structure, without trying to specify
too much in a formal charter -- my bent is that the formalization
should be a codification of practice, not that practice should be the
slave of formality.
That being said, we do have some practice that needs codification. We
have an election process, we have officers, and we have a partially
defined relationship with POC. There is sufficient material for a
draft document. And there are open discussions concerning various
policies that can soon contribute more to such a document. The basic
point is that we don't need a perfect charter -- it can grow. But we
do need a charter.
2. CORE
One of the most important issues before us is the clarification of the
relationship between CORE and PAB. Perhaps it should be similar to
our relationship with POC (official, elected observers, or something
similar) or perhaps it should be totally different. But we need to
make it clear.
3. Open deliberations
It is my strong belief that the mailing list should be archived, and
the archive should be public. Schemes such as archiving on a weekly
basis can be used to control noise, but IMO if we are making decisions
that affect the internet at large, then we have a flat ethical duty to
make those deliberations visible. I also believe that this exposure
will induce people to sign the MoU, and will otherwise foster much
wider participation.
Fair warning: This is a very strong personal priority -- I would like
to make the archive public as of Jan 1, 1998 :-)
4. Stronger WWW presence
Along with an archive of mail, I think we need to put more support
behind our presence on the web. In the long run I expect that PAB
will be the most visible of the MoU bodies, because...
5. Future challenges
I am, of course, a strong supporter of the MoU, but, like everyone I
know, I do not think it is perfect. In particular, it doesn't specify
how new TLDs get selected for the root zone.
Defining this mechanism is a major job, and will clearly involve more
than just PAB. But, IMO, PAB is the logical place where much of the
decision process should reside.
This is a serious responsibility, and it has potential legal and other
implications that have to be considered carefully.
But I believe that is the direction we should go.
-----End of forwarded message-----
-- Kent Crispin "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