Re: A New Beginning

[Jim Dixon <jdd@matthew.uk1.vbc.net>]

On Tue, 8 Sep 1998, Don Heath wrote:

> >The Internet community has expressed concern
> >at the closed and limited nature of the current
> >negotiations occurring between the IANA and NSI,
> >especially given comments that no further input
> >will be required from the IFWP participants.
> 
> Hmmmmmmm.  I am unaware of the "Internet community" expressing
> concern over anything like this.  If anything, "they" are quite
> positive about these current developments of IANA and NSI!!

Among those who are aware of the IFWP process and especially 
among those who attended the various regional conferences, there
is in fact a good deal of misgiving on the peculiar way in which
the process ended, with the wrap-up conference cancelled because
IANA and NSI refused to attend.

This sense of frustation and concern is plainly evident on the
email lists used for public discussion of these issues.

On the other hand I know few people who are "quite positive"
about the current developments at IANA and NSI.  The IANA drafts 
ignore the recommendations of the White Paper, they ignore the
consensus conclusions of the EC-sponsored meeting on these 
issues in Brussels on 7 July, and they ignore the consensus 
results of the IFWP.  

The new corporation described by these articles and bylaws has no 
membership.  It has a board that selects itself.  It has articles 
and bylaws that can be changed casually without any sort of 
reference to the outside world; no hearings or public notice are 
required.  

This board, which has responsibility for great assets, can change the 
fundamental nature and objectives of the corporation without any sort of 
notice at all.  In fact, only the sketchiest sort of reports on any 
activity are necessary, and these only every year.  In short the board 
of IANA's proposed new corporation lacks any accountability.

We are told that the drafts are being changed to reflect 
NSI's concerns.  This is, I imagine, a positive development
from NSI's point of view.  I have also been assured that 
several other parties have dialogues going with IANA.  That's
nice for them too.  But it is not the open process envisioned 
by the White Paper and embodied in the IFWP.

> >Some of these members have decided to meet in 
> >Boston on the 19th of September as originally 
> >planned.  I would like to suggest the following:
> >
> >-	That the Steering Committee immediately change
> >	the mission of the IFWP to include organizing
> >	activities designed to foster the implementation
> >	of the IFWP consensus points in the New Corp.
> 
> I will vote no to such a suggestion.  It is not only highly
> unproductive, it is likely counter-productive and will only
> introduce confusion.

The steering committee has never been a policy-making body.
Its sole purpose has been the provision of neutral venues 
for IFWP meetings.  

Setting a mission for the IFWP is a fundamental act of policy
making.  As such it is outside the scope of the steering
committee's activities.

In the end the mission of the IFWP must be decided by its 
participants.  If those who have been involved in this process
choose to meet in Boston and choose to call that meeting an IFWP
meeting, who can stop them?  If the IFWP steering committee 
refuses to be involved in that meeting -- and no such decision
has yet been made -- then arguably the steering committee 
simply isn't doing its job and needs to be reconstituted.

And this takes us to the heart of the matter.  The steering 
committee has been packed by people who have never had any
interest in the mission of the steering committee, which is
providing neutral venues for IFWP meetings.  Their interest
is entirely in policy questions.  They are on the steering
committee solely to pervert the operations of the committee,
to make sure that only meetings which meet their policy 
objectives occur, and that such meetings as do occur are
engineered to meet those objectives.

So Jay's request for a change in the mission of the IFWP is
inappropriate.  What is really needed is a clarification of 
the mission of the steering committee itself and the introduction 
of sufficient structure to permit that mission to be accomplished.

Yes, I grant you, it is very late to be making these changes.
But then again, perhaps it isn't.  Since the IFWP process has been
frustrated, since this open process has been blocked and we find
ourselves shut out from behind-closed-doors negotiations between
the two Federal contractors involved, perhaps the IFWP process
does indeed need to be continued.

> >-	That the Steering Committee immediately sanction 
> >	the pending event under our new mission, and that
> >	it begin planning an effective campaign to see
> >	this process through to conclusion.
> 
> After almost three years, this complex issue is striving toward
> reaching the beginning of a solution.  Your proposal will do nothing
> but possibly derail it.  We have done our job in the IFWP; it's
> time to move on.

The IFWP promised an open resolution of this problem and in fact
made more progress on this issue than any other activity in the 
preceding three years.  Your argument is that what was obviously
working should be junked in favor of what obviously did not work.
This is not a convincing argument.

--
Jim Dixon                  VBCnet GB Ltd           http://www.vbc.net
tel +44 117 929 1316                             fax +44 117 927 2015