Lead-in to the Ottawa wrapup meeting (I)

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 15:30:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>
To: DOMAIN-POLICY@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET
Subject: Re: do we need a wrap-up IFWP meeting?

On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Jason Hendeles wrote:

> > Jon's draft has some interesting features.  However, since so many key
> > attributes seem to have come out differently in the meetings or to be
> > in dispute that it's not a good strawman.  Probably 2/3 of it is just
> > irrelevant California incorporation boilerplate.

This is *NOT* irrelevant to an organization that wishes to incorporate
under California laws. However I think it would be an excellent idea if
Jon were to redraft his proposal, separating the California legal
boilerplate from the sunbstantive items and including a commentary from a
California attorney explaining the legal boilerplate. I suspect that most
folks will be happier if they see the legal stuff because in the end, an
incorporated entity *WILL* have such legal boilerplate and if it is not
dealt with in the wrap-up meeting then it will be done by lawyers behind
closed doors.

> > The current sticking points probably involve
> > only a few key matters like classes and powers of members, composition
> > and powers of the Councils, Board diversity, and selection of initial
> > board.

I have found it useful to resolve this sort of impasse by having one
person submit the strawman proposal and then having another person from
the opposing camp read this strawman and submit alternate proposals that
deal with the sticking point. Then the wrapup would be presented with
basically two strawman proposals but because the alternate deals only with
the sticking points, it is a lot easier to craft a final proposal that
merges the two. Of course this would be done at a meeting where other
draft proposals were available so it does not imply that either of the two
strawmen necessarily has an advantage. They just structure the discussion.
For example, the timeline would be:

Basic strawman proposal from Jon Postel

Alternate strawman proposal dealing with only the sticking points from ???

Public online discussion

Acceptance of draft proposals from others with the request that such
drafts deal only with disputed portions of the two strawman proposals

The wrapup meeting

I think that this sort of process would maximize the openness of the
process and not disenfranchise any interested parties.

If anyone wishes to forward this message to other discussion forums then
please feel free to do so.

--
Michael Dillon                 -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Communications Inc.      -               E-mail: michael@memra.com
Check the website for my Internet World articles -  http://www.memra.com