Re: The Price Of Admission. Unacceptable.

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Kent and all,


  I only have a few comments here, O I will be brief.  (See below)

Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> 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.

  ISP's are not the only representitives that CORE should be
made up of.  And those representitives from ISP's should be
elected by their customers.  As should all of the CORE members.
> 
> Be that as it may, POC is actively pursuing getting more direct
> representation for ISPs.

  That is good.
> 
> >  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.

  Of course the Nominet members are answerble to its consitiuancy.
SO I find this argument flawed.

>  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?

  They are.  Like RIPE for instance.  Didn't you read Heathers post
closely?  Have you reasearched Nominet throughly?  Doesn't appers that
you have.  Or this question would not have come from you.
> 
> CORE, by contrast, is answerable to its members *and* to  PAB/POC.

  PAB has only advisory possition, therefore no real influence.  SO
this statment is only half true.  Read your own MoU.

> 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.

  Form Jays post and the MoU site this statment doesn't really ring
quite true.  Your own previous post also refutes this statment in that
You said that there are only 12 members of POC.  This is not possible to 
be anywhere closely representitive of the stakeholders by any strech of
anyones immagination.

>  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.

  That is the problem.  It is "There Organization".  That should
say "OUR Organization".  Everyone that is a Internet user/stakeholder.
> 
> > 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.

  That's good to know.
> 
> 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).

  Well CORE has YET do be a freely elected body. SO your comparison
is weak here.
> 
> 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.

  Your statments here have very little validity.  Do your homework
better Kent.
> 
> 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.

  Yes PAB has "Input"  but nothing binding.  Not good enough.
> 
> 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.

  Good points here.
> 
> 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.

  Your idea of oversite and mine are obviously two diffreant things.
Without real "Check and balances" or ability to overide, PAB has not
real function other than to advise.  PAB really represents the
largers pool of constituants, and thy have no power.  That wont
work.

> 
> 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.

  Yes, but that or those policies can be constructed in such a way as
to guide CORE in many and various ways.  

>  Many POC
> representatives will be selected through *elections* from their
> sponsoring organizations (the PAB observers were elected.)

  PAB members were elected?  Really?  By whom?  Hell I didn't
get a vote! Ahhhh, but I didn't sigh the MoU either.  Now I get
it.  Though I have been in the internet software buisness for
9 years and involved with the development of the Internet for
nearly 20 years, if I don't sign the MoU I have no "Input"
the the DNS name space managment process.  That's wonderful!
And SOOOOO democratic as well....  Oh boy!

> POC members
> have a limited term.  In other words, the POC is a pretty democratic
> body.

  It is?  Hummmmm?  I didn't vote for any of them either.  I am a
stakeholder.  How come I didn't get a vote?  Oh, that's right
I didn't sign the MoU.  I see.  Representitive of the stakeholders
huh?  

> 
> 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.

  Sounds like POC.
> 
> --
> 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

Regards,
-- 
Jeffrey A. Williams
DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java Development Eng.
Information Eng. Group. IEG. INC. 
Phone :913-294-2375 (v-office)
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com