Section 3.6 Work in Progress Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] Section still wanting words

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

Andrew and I spoke for about 90 minutes yesterday morning, and we've 
exchanged email this morning. This is simply my impression at this 
point in time:
First, there are several examples of bundling, examples where the 
simple "one application, one string" statement has been overtaken by 
events. These are:
        o multiple strings for China, to solve the SC/TC equivalence problem

	o multiple strings for Saudi Arabia, to solve Arabic Script variant 
character problem
        o multiple strings for Greece, to solve the Greek Tonos problem

Second, we are in agreement on everything except whether an acceptable 
outcome is:
	(a) the initial applicant for a language community may be any party 
which seeks to offer registry services using the associated script and 
language, and is not restricted to needs and location qualified parties,
or

	(b) the initial applicant for a language community must be a party 
which is associated with or arises organically from that community, 
and is restricted to needs and location qualified parties.
My impression is that Andrew, and possibly Richard, consider that one 
registry in a Script and language will encourage subsequent, and 
competitive, applications for the same Script and language. Hence the 
discount, tied to the size of the language community in nominal 
percentages, made available to non-qualified applicants.
My concern is the case where the community is capable of supporting a 
registry, and the relationship of the eligibility policy to the 
community is at risk if the eligibility policy arises externally. As a 
hypothetical, the .cat trajectory may have been less satisfactory if 
the policy for .cat were made by the .es (Spain) registry operator, or 
by Verisign, rather than by Fundatio PuntCat.
Perhaps this is a "growth will cure error" position and a "error may 
prevent growth" position.
My view is that if the benefit is limited to qualified applications, 
each qualified applicant will use it completely for the advancement of 
their community, and not attempt to "assist", or capture, some other 
language community, prior to the development of "ICANN awareness" and 
the capital accumulation necessary for an application by the second or 
subsequent communities.
Everything else I'm confident that either Andrew or I could hold the 
pen to the satisfaction of the other, there is only this one issue to 
address, and his view may be the better one.
I suggest people think a bit about these two alternatives and let 
Andrew or I know.
Eric