Teetering on the brink of failure

[mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

I have been travelling for three days and returned to 359 emails
about the attempt to
create a new non-profit organization to coordinate the Internet.

Reading them over, I am appalled. I would happily stand
correction, but here is a
description of what I see:
    * a significant number of IFWP Steering committee members
have abandoned the
       process and have chosen to bargain behind the scenes with
IANA or NSI or
       whomever for a position on the interim board.
    * None of the three major parties in this process (IANA,
NSI, and the remnants of
       the old ISOC/gTLD-MoU) show the slightest commitment to
an open process
       anymore. The most egregious example is the rump
gTLD-MoU's attempt to
       pre-emptively organize a DNSO. Taking this step when the
articles and bylaws
       establishing such an organization do not even exist yet,
and when there are proposals
       on the table which advance very different concepts of the
SOs' role, indicates that the
       people behind this organization want to achieve influence
via pre-emption rather than
       consensus. But this attempt at pre-emption was in fact
spawned by IANA and NSI
       themselves, whose private deal, and subsequent failure to
rejoin the public process and
       respond in a formal, organized, public way to suggested
modifications, set the stage
       for a host of private, behind-the-scenes power grabs.
    * There is no longer a designated, widely accepted, PUBLIC
forum for
       modification of the draft articles and by-laws
    * There is no designated, accepted public forum for
nomination and veto of interim
        board members. This is perhaps the most inexcusable,
because it would be
        so easy to implement, and because Ira Magaziner has
explicitly called for such a
        development. How difficult could it be to establish a
posting board at the
        IFWP site, or elsewhere? The fact that this hasn't been
done leads any rational
        observer to the unavoidable and depressing conclusion
that a critical part of the so-
        called "leadership" of the existing Internet simply
doesn't want it to happen.
        Apparently, they prefer backroom deals where people can
be selected out of the
        view of the broader public engaged in the IFWP process.
    * The IFWP list has degenerated into throwing up
off-the-top-of-the-head
lists of board members, lists that basically consist of people
the nominator knows
and likes, lists made without any regard to geographical
representation (which any fool
knows is imperative on political AND ethical AND practical
grounds), and without
regard for balancing various segments of the Internet population
(e.g., ISPs, end users,
public interest groups, registries, etc.)

Is it too much to ask that we unite in the face of these obvious
affronts to the nature of
the WP process? It is, I believe, utterly useless to be talking
about specific names or
specific by-law modifications when it has become unclear to WHOM
we are making these
proposals, and whether or not whoever it is is even listening.
We must come to grips
with the much more fundamental question of how these questions
are going to be finally
resolved, who is going to resolve them, when, and what we are
going to do if we are given
the wrong answers to those questions.

One option that I think we need to consider at this point is a
stark declaration that
"stakeholder governance" is a failure, and a request to the USG
to resolve the last set of
conflicts and problems via a formal, publicly mediated process.

--Milton Mueller