On the "earliest delegation date" arising from any "EOI"

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kurt,

Without revisiting the reasons why I thought, and continue to think, 
that the EOI is not the best of the alternatives presented to the 
Board at Sydney and Seoul, I want to make sure I understand the 
proposed process, and independent of the model's internal features or 
flaws, the dependencies between the EOI as proposed initially, and 
pre-existing processes.
The Staff discussion draft of the 18 December, 2009 posits a vote, 
presumably on the Staff draft and the comments, as summarized by 
Staff, at the February, 2010 meeting, followed by work on the EOI and 
some parallel work (some of which are the dependencies which motivate 
this question), culminating in DAGv4, presumably no earlier than 
March. There is usually a comments period after something is 
published, with the unusual exception of the comments period prior to 
the Board vote on the EOI proposal, which effectively concluded after 
the vote. These usually last several weeks.
It seems therefore possible that the focused communication campaign of 
four months may begin as late as May or June, and conclude no sooner 
than October or November, that is 4Q2010.
So the EOI will start to gather data of the form of strings, informing 
the evaluation process' scaling of contention set, comparative 
evaluation, and auction functions, and of RSTEP resource consumption, 
again informing the evaluation process' scaling of that rather 
inelastic resource, and of "community-based", "standard" and 
"single-registrant" numbers, again informing the evaluation process' 
scaling of comparative evaluation (mentioned previously), and assuming 
the "single-registrant" model is independently approved by the Board, 
etc., about the time of next November's meeting, that is, a year after 
being proposed.
Assuming that the EOI process the Board approves is not a "snap proof" 
as proposed by a private advocacy group of debatable interests, and 
takes some weeks or months from "open" to "close", the data available 
to inform the evaluation process will be available in 1Q2011.
Assuming the EOI does inform the evaluation process substantively, the 
resulting DAG, whether v5 or v6, could appear in 2Q2011.
However, while work can continue in parallel, starting in 1Q2010, 
noted above, on registry-registrar separation and other issues, it is 
possible that the EOI data, available in 1Q2011 and integrated in the 
DAG in 2Q2011, would inform the registry-registrar separation issue, 
resulting in continued work on that subject alone, after 2Q2011, and 
before applications are accepted. The same possibility arises for the 
four overarching issues, and of course, the issue I personally think 
controlling, the rate of change the ICANN/IANA/DOC/VGRS process, which 
for safety reasons, should involve the "four eyes principle" for each 
and every change.
So, ignoring all other issues, it appears that the EOI will ensure 
that applications are not accepted for approximately eight (8) 
quarters from the present, or 1Q2012.
Is this your understanding?

Aside from the consequences on applicants, whether the cost to 
participate in the EOI is zero or some number designed to deter 
applications from outside the OEDC economic zone, or show credible 
assets on the balance sheets of speculative repeats of the 2000 cycle, 
this has other effects.
For instance, on January 7th we will continue the discussion of the 
proposed draft registry agreement [1]. If we don't actually need to 
come to a single, or several contracts, for "community based", 
"standard" and "single-registrant", for the better part of two, or 
three years, the tempo of work, the investment made in attending, in 
person or remotely, this particular, contract and registry-registrar 
separation consultation, is less pressing than if contracts could be 
entered into in 2010, rather than in 2012 or 2013.
Again, I'm not trying to re-argue that the EOI can't be useful, I've 
already made that case, and I'm pleased that Staff's summary of 
comments caught the more obvious points I made. I'm also not trying to 
argue for any particular form internal to the EOI model. I'll turn to 
that later, or my colleges at CORE will.
My sole interest is in the time the process must consume, and the 
dependencies the evaluation process, IRT, Root Scaling, and 
Registry-Registrar separation have, in theory, on the outcome of any 
particular EOI.
I'm sure this was well understood by the advocates for an EOI, and I 
simply overlooked the 2012 optimal application outcome being focused 
on what any EOI could not do, with the controlling assumption that the 
rate of change the ICANN/IANA/DOC/VGRS process, which for safety 
reasons, should involve the "four eyes principle" for each and every 
change, would yield a limit well under any plausible EOI discovery, 
and is, of necessity, a resource only utilized by the ccTLD IDN 
FastTrack applicants, until 4Q2012, or 2013 assuming only minor delays.
That is, nothing new goes into the IANA root until 3Q2013, except IDN 
entries for the 40 or so ccTLDs applying under FastTrack. Again, is my 
understanding of a 2013 date for earliest actual delegations under any 
EOI consistent with your own?
I am of course, employed by CORE, which has an interest in the 
outcome, though as usual, this is offered in my individual capacity.
Cheers,
Eric

[1] http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-15dec09-en.htm