Re: [ifwp] Re: The Board

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Kent and all,

Kent Crispin wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 28, 1998 at 07:24:43PM +0100, Jim Dixon wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, Einar Stefferud wrote:
> >
> > > The primary desired property of the Interim and Permanent NewCo Board
> > > must be that is has very limited powers, to only oversee and
> > > facilitate the formation of open subordinate councils with fair
> > > hearing processes and representative "membership" based on open
> > > selection processes.  Fairness and openness are the primary
> > > requirements.
> >
> > I agree that fairness and openness are essential.
> >
> > However, the idea that power should be exercised by the councils
> > instead of the Board, as you seem to suggest, is fundamentally
> > flawed.

  Again Jim, why?  It is easy to say this it is another to expand on such a flat statement.

>
>
> Not only is it fundamentally flawed, but it will not even solve the
> problem that Einar intends to solve.  At some point the body with
> power will be created; the problem of how that body is accountable to
> users will remain; and there will be great contention over who is on
> that body and how they will be selected.

  The "BOdy" that should be in the real power position is the Stakeholders/Members.
So Steff's assertion that the BOD doesn't have any real power that the Stakeholder/
members do not give it is essentially the correct direction or path to follow as in
accordance with the "Bottom-up" approach that the White Paper enunciates.

 Yes the BOD should have the power to insure that whatever resolutions that
are VOTED upon by the Stakeholders/Members that were determined and
presented by the Councils in the form of Resolutions will than become the policies
by which the Internet will be governed by at that point.  Remember this is a
an Evolutionary process....

> If the new board has no
> real power, as Einar suggests, then it can't do anything.

  Sure the new BOD can do what the Stakeholders in conjunction with the councilsresolutions
that are VOTED upon by the Stakeholders/Members and become policy
will be the responsibility of the BOD to insure that they are implemented and carried
out or adhered to.  This would include any contracts for existing registries
(RIPE/APNIC/ARIN) or any DNS existing registries for com/net/org for DN's
by the Names council by way of voting on resolutions by the Stekeholders/Membership
in which the language of those contracts should be outlined.   Than at that point the BOD
may solicit for bids for those contracts.  This would be part ot the powers of the BOD,
all be they indirect.

> If it
> can't do anything, then all the doing will wait until the "name
> council" (or whoever is actually going to have the power) is
> selected.
>
> More succinctly, there is no point in selecting a board that can't do
> anything, because then nothing will get done until the real power is
> selected.  The problem here is that we would really like to get
> something done come September 30 -- we would like to deal with the end
> of the NSI/NFS contract.  Any board that has to actually deal with
> that transition will have to have significant power -- it will have to
> work out how .com/.net/.org are handled, because those are REAL LIVE
> REGISTRIES that have to continue working, and CONTRACTS will have to
> be signed to continue their operation.
>

See my description on how these functions should be handled above.

> The cold fact is that all the debate about representation and trademark
> issue is second order, and can be put off.

  THere are no REAL Trademark issues.  Got it!?

>
>
> We can even put off the general issue of profit vs non-profit, as
> long as NSI can be bound by whatever decision is ultimately reached.

  Certainly the can be held to any decisions.  ANd that will be determined by the
councils and implemented by the board.

>
>
> When it gets right down to it, I see that there are two specific
> issues that must be resolved by the community before we can proceed:
>
>     1) We must agree that .com/.net, and .org are generic names that
>     belong to the community.  There is no realistic way that ownership
>     of those names can simply be given to anyone.

  Correct.  But in essence they already do belong to the Internet community by law.

>
>
>     2) We must agree that the new organization must own the
>     .com/.org/.net contact database, in trust for the community.
>     (That is, access cannot be granted to that database without a
>     public process to control that access.)

  This is partially correct.  Copies of that database may be issued to other
registries under contract with appropriate safeguards and oversight by
the Board as part of the language of those contracts.

>
>
> Then we must pick a board that will
>
>     0) continue the current activities of IANA (those activities must
>     continue);

  Certainly true.  But the board is not necessarily the proper place where thesefunctions
should be executed.  THese functions can be contracted out under
board supervision once decided by the relevant Address and Protocol councils
and VOTED upon by the Stakeholders/Members.  So this is not a direct function of the
board to make these decisions.  Rather it is the decision of the relevant councils
in conjunction with the approval by VOTE from the Stakeholder/Membership.

>
>
>     1) take ownership of the above two items, in trust for the public;

  The NewCo must do this as an "Entity" not just a board control.

>
>
>     2) implement an interim contract that will continue the operation
>     of the .net/.com/.org registries; and

  Implement, yes, draft and determine what that contract should be, no.  In additionall bids on
this and any other contracts should be reviewed by the relevant councils
and presented to the Membership for a vote of approval before implementation can
proceed.

>
>
>     3) facilitate the creation of a public process to control the
>     various functions; and turn over management of those functions to
>     that public process, when it is ready.

This must be done at the same time that the BOD is elected.

> [...]
>
> > The risk here is that the powers to the Board will be so narrowly
> > defined that it will be unable to cope with the next great Internet
> > crisis, whatever that may be.
> >
> > I think that what we really need here is, yes, a narrowly defined set
> > of initial powers but also a mechanism for extending those powers in
> > a way that allows thorough review.
>
> I think the simplest thing to do is to create an explicit transition
> organization with a narrow set of powers, as I described above.  All
> good programmers know that you throw the first one away...
>
> --
> 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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 Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com