Re: The Price Of Admission. Unacceptable.

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Wed, Sep 17, 1997 at 07:47:59PM +0100, Heather Islip wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Sep 17, 1997 at 08:45:21AM +0100, Jim Dixon wrote:
> > > On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Kent Crispin wrote:
> > > 
> > > *	but no representation at all for ISPs, without whose 
> > > 	networks there would be no Internet 
> > 
> > Given the Nominet experience, it seems likely that the 2 voting 
> > representatives of CORE will represent ISP interests to some extent.
> 
> I'm puzzled as to exactly what you mean by "the Nominet experience"
> in this context.

According to Jim, a large percentage of the Nominet members are ISPs, 
and almost all ISPs are members.  For similar reasons, one would 
therefore expect that CORE would have many ISPs as members, probably 
a majority.  Therefore, the CORE representatives to POC will 
substantially represent ISPs.

Be that as it may, POC is actively pursuing getting more direct 
representation for ISPs.

>  Nominet has a board of non-executive directors 
> comprising
> 
> 	* Keith Mitchell, Chairman of the LINX representing 40+
> 	  major ISPs
> 	* Rob Blokzjil who works for RIPE
> 	* Alex Bligh, who is an ISP
> 	* Ivan Pope who owns Netnames
> 
> All of these people make their living full-time from the Internet;
> all of them are fully committed to the good of the Net.  None of
> them is fully committed to the interests of trademark owners or
> telcos.

I have met Ivan -- an excellent chap -- and I'm sure the others are
fine people as well.  Nominet is an excellent organization, and I
think very highly of it.  I see Nominet as more akin to CORE, in that
regard -- a non-profit organization committed to running a registry.  
However, as far as I can see, Nominet has no other oversight body, 
whereas the MoU specifies two for CORE.  Nominet is answerable to its 
members; its members are answerable to no one.  While that organization 
works well in the Nominet case one might ask why is it that ISPs are the 
ones who determine domain name policy.  Shouldn't other constituencies 
on the net have a say about domain names?

CORE, by contrast, is answerable to its members *and* to  PAB/POC.  
PAB is a self-selected group who agree to an organizational structure 
and certain principles -- membership open to anyone who agrees to those 
things; POC is selected from a wide range of groups 
who are stakeholders in domain names.  Like it or not, intellectual 
property issues do impact domain names; therefore IP interests need 
to be represented; they have two out of 12 votes presently, and that 
percentage will be less when the MoU is amended.  Telcos have a 
similar small representation; there is no reason to think that telcos 
and IP representatives will collude on anything, and even if they did 
they collectively are not capable of passing anything.

And as a Nominet member you sign an agreement agreeing to the
principles and organization of Nominet.  The agreement even has a
clause to the effect that you agree not to do anything that makes
Nominet look bad, as I recall... 


> > There has been extensive discussion in PAB and in POC about adding 1
> > or more representatives from ISPs.  The main problem has been deciding
> > a means of selecting representatives, but this will be resolved, and
> 
> The Nominet board was elected.  By the members.  Democratically.


I imagine that CORE will elect a board, as well.  However, that is 
for the ISPs and other members to decide, I guess -- it is their 
organization -- just like Nominet. 

> Personally I find it rather difficult to understand why an American 
> is apparently so very opposed to the democratic process.

Don't be absurd.  I am a very strong proponent of democratic process.

Consider your example of democratic process, Nominet.  The members
freely elect their board (as CORE will almost assuredly do), but you
have to pay $800 to be a member (with CORE you have to pay much more,
but that will change to a level similar to Nominet).  

Because of the obvious self-selection process the membership of
Nominet is composed of people in the Internet business -- mostly ISPs 
and similar businesses.  Now, it may not be obvious to your 
democratic sensibility, but it is obvious to mine: such a composition 
is *not* representative of the internet community at large, nor is it 
representative of domain name users at large.  In particular, 
business users in other kinds of businesses (sporting goods, catalog 
sales, etc) may have quite different views of what are appropriate 
policies for domain names -- in particular, they may have quite 
different views of relationship between domain names and trademarks 
than the average ISP.  But the average sporting goods store is not 
going to pay $800 to get a say in domain name policy.

Nominet has no structured way to get policy input from other 
constituencies.  This is not true for the MoU -- there is a "Policy 
Oversight Committee" that is selected from a wide range of 
constituencies.  The structure is such that other representatives can 
be added, and anyone can join PAB and vote on the PAB representatives 
to POC -- PAB is explicitly chartered with carrying wide ranging 
input to the POC.

Furthermore, this is *far* more important in an international 
context.  With Nominet, if you don't like something you can sue in a 
British court, and if you have a good case, likely win.  And suppose 
after 10 years of operation Nominet is down to 15 members, as market 
forces have weeded out the small players.  If those 15 members 
decided that the price of domains should be higher, presumably 
British anti-trust law would be applicable (it would be in the US).  
In an international arena applying anti-trust law would be much more 
problematic.

There is more to democratic process than elections, Heather.  You need
oversight, as well, to protect small constituencies (you have perhaps
heard of the "tyranny of the majority"?).  That's something that the
MoU provides that Nominet does not -- representative oversight. 

Immediately I imagine Jim Dixon's cheap shot "The MoU provides tyranny
of the minority!", so I will answer it before he even has the chance:
The POC does *not* run CORE -- it sets policy.  Many POC
representatives will be selected through *elections* from their
sponsoring organizations (the PAB observers were elected.) POC members
have a limited term.  In other words, the POC is a pretty democratic
body.

Now, there is no guarantee that everybody on the POC will be good.  
Through accident or plot, bad management could get in, just like it 
could in Nominet.  However, the wide range of constituencies 
represented makes it very unlikely that this will happen.  Bad 
management is far more likely when you have an organization with 
homogeneous membership, where people all know each other, and 
groupthink takes over.

-- 
Kent Crispin				"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