From kent@songbird.com  Thu Sep  3 00:47:09 1998
Delivery-Date: Thu, 03 Sep 1998 00:47:09 -0700
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 00:48:33 -0700
From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
To: iana@iana.org
Subject: PAB Endorsement of IANA Draft Bylaws
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Disclaimer: Things are not as they seem
X-PGP-Key: http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

Statement by the gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body concerning the IANA 
draft Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation:

  The gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body welcomes the announcement by IANA
  of the third draft of the draft Bylaws and Articles of
  Incorporation, and endorses them as the basis for creation of the
  independent IANA non-profit corporation.

  PAB further wishes to express its appreciaton for the effort
  undertaken by IANA to act as a "fair broker" for consensus among
  stakeholders.  It is clear to all objective parties that no single
  group currently represents the consensus of all stakeholders in the
  Internet.  And, while IANA itself is not immune from bias, two
  characteristics make it uniquely suited to act as a "fair broker":
  1) it has a long and respected history that gives ample proof of its
  ability to act in a fair and impartial manner, and 2) no other
  entity knows as much about the operational requirements for the new
  IANA. 

  One of the stakeholder forums is the International Forum for the
  White Paper (IFWP).  This process has, for the last two months,
  brought together a significant number of stakeholders of the
  Internet from around the world, and has facilitated discussion of
  some of the most important issues regarding the incorporation of
  IANA. 

  As suggested by Tamar Frankel, facilitator of the IFWP process,
  consensus search has been carried out in small break-out sessions;
  but generally, consensus has not been pursued in the plenary
  sessions of these meetings.  This allowed talk about
  work-in-progress, without prejudicing results for further meetings,
  but did not provide a mechanism for aggregating consenus. 

  However, many of the results of the IFWP do seem to reflect clear
  consensus of the Internet Community, and we believe they have been
  correctly understood by IANA and reflected in the Third Iteration of
  the Bylaws. 

  An important area for which there has been wide agreement was that
  there be some kind of membership organization associated with the
  new IANA, with at least some directors elected from a general
  membership.  Some participants insist that the membership should be
  of individuals only; others insist that only organizational
  membership be allowed. 

  The draft Bylaws defer implementation of such a structure, citing
  several significant difficulties with various implementations of a
  membership organization.  It is also worth noting that the
  controversies alluded to above would have to be resolved, and we
  believe that these issues simply cannot be resolved in the time
  available before the IANA corporation must be functional. 

  PAB is uniquely suited to comment on this matter.  It is, in fact, a
  membership organization.  It has no financial requirements for
  membership, such as dues or membership fees, but does require a
  signature on a legal document.  Only legally constituted
  organizations can be members, but, because there is no financial
  requirement, very small organizations, such as sole proprietorship
  businesses, have joined. 

  PAB has little real power, and has not existed for even a year, yet
  it has already experienced what can fairly be called a takeover
  attempt.  This illustrates without a doubt that the concerns
  expressed in the draft Bylaws are well founded, and implementation
  of a membership organization would have to be done very cautiously. 
  An open membership organization with significant power would be a
  much juicier target than PAB, and in particular, direct membership
  with proxies would be an open invitation for manipulation. 

  That being said, the very existence of PAB is predicated on the
  worth of membership organizations.  We note that the proposed
  structure of IANA includes half the directors being selected through
  Support Organizations, with the remaining half selected at large
  through some as yet undetermined process.  If that process were some
  sort of election conducted by a carefully constituted membership
  organization, with legal binding on the members, the model would be
  very close to the PAB/POC model.  We encourage IANA and the interim
  board to consider this very seriously, and we look forward to
  working with them on this matter. 




-- 
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