re: don heath's comments

[Paul A Vixie <paul@vix.com>]

Note that I am not yet on the iahc-discuss mailing list, so just this once
if you want me to participate in the thread you should be sure and CC me.

> I just don't believe it's worth worrying about the so-called charter too
> much.  The iahc will attempt to resolve much, with the help of all the good
> people participating on this list, and perhaps many others as well.

I must disagree with this.  I know that Don doesn't plan to defend his
comments but I want to make sure that the rest of those assembled hear
this reaction even if Don does not.

The charter is why IAHC exists and fulfilling that charter is IAHC's task.
IAHC is not an opportunity to gather more public comments and spend the
next half year self-selecting a mission based on those comments: this
discussion has been going on for at least two years and the reason IAHC now
exists is to make specific progress toward specific goals -- and those
goals are the ones expressed in the charter and in IANA's itld-admin draft.

> Also, any dates mentioned shouldn't be worried about too much.  They were
> done to give a reasonable timeframe to what we were shooting for.  This
> stuff has been debated for a long time (in Internet time) - it's time to
> get moving and resolve some things.  That's why we formed the IAHC.

If by the above you mean "don't take the charter's dates seriously since
they are obviously way too far in the future," I would be willing to agree.
If however you mean "don't take the dates seriously since we have quite a
lot of up-front work to do garnering public commentary and we will probably
not make any visible progress on chartered work items within the time frames
given," then we are going to have a serious problem.

We do not need another think tank or another debating society.  IAHC should
get its work done and then consider early disbandment as a goal worth working
toward.  The time for "what should we do?" is largely past -- it is now time
for "how do we do it?" and "do it."