[soac-newgtldapsup-wg] The temporal narrative of the foundation

[ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Avri, Alan,

To follow-up on this morning's conversation, starting with the language
now removed from an earlier draft that somewhat pessimally forecast the
date by which the TBD Foundation could provide assistance, and jumping
to my concluding remark that the meta-narrative could reflect the fund
in a longer temporal context than what I read as the implied one at the
moment -- focused mostly on the January-to-April 2012 period ...

We can forecast collective expenses (or requirements) of the qualified
applicants, e.g.,
all will need to submit $5k within the January-to-April 2012 period,
all will need to submit $47k January-to-April 2012 period, ...

So working backwards we have all qualified applicants have some form
of expense requirement prior, the application development cost, the
(optional) meeting attendence cost, the Continuity of Operations  Instrument
(COI) cost, ...

And working forwards we have all qualified applicants have some form
of expense requirement subsequent, the contention, enhanced evaluation
and objection risk funds, the cost of responding to the evaluator,
the cost of contracting, the cost of transition to delegation, and
costs of marketing, channel creation, general operations, ...

As a need vs time plot, with "need" on the vertical axis, and time on
the horizontal, I imagine this looks like a herd of Bactrian camels,
bunches of lumps up, then down.

We can forecast collective reveneus (or resources) available to the
qualified applicants, e.g.,
general fungible (cash or equivalent) resources, and
needs-specific (cash or equvalent or in-kind) resources.

In particular, no earlier than the string contention phase, a resource
becomes potentially available, proceeds from contention that are resolved
by auction.

As a pro forma, there can be an assumption on the fraction of applicants
which exceed cost-recover plus margin goals and generate "profit", and
the rate of payment to the fund in each year by each cohort of assistance
beneficiaries.

If the general ICANN horizon is ten years out, our recommendation for the
fund can adopt that horizon for the purposes of initial forecasting, and
escape the hypnotizing clutches of the immediate present. Oblig note: of
course all crystal balls are cracked.

We should write for the future, and the passage of time should enter our
narrative, is my suggestion in sum.

Eric