Re: PAB Proposal for support of IANA.

[K S LIM <ks_lim@logchina.com.sg>]

Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> Here's a draft.  I incorporated some text from Mark's edit of Javier's
> draft, but deleted a lot of the specifics.  I hope you guys will
> forgive me.
> 
> ================================================================
> 
> Statement by the gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body concerning the IANA
> draft Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation:
> 
>   The gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body welcomes the announcement by IANA
>   of the third draft of the draft Bylaws and Articles of
>   Incorporation, and endorses them as the basis for creation of the
>   new IANA.
> 
>   PAB further wishes to express its appreciaton for the effort
>   undertaken by IANA to act as a "fair broker" for consensus among
>   stakeholders.  It is clear to all objective parties that no single
>   group currently represents the consensus of all stakeholders in the
>   Internet.  And, while IANA itself is not immune from bias, three
>   characteristics make it uniquely suited to act as a "fair
>   broker": 1) it has a long and respected history that gives ample
>   proof of its ability to act in a fair and impartial manner, 2) no
>   other entity knows as much about the operational requirements for
>   the new IANA, and 3) no other entity has spent more time in
>   intelligent consideration of the requirements for the new IANA.
> 
>   One of the stakeholder forums is the International Forum for the
>   White Paper (IFWP).  This process has, for the last two months,
>   brought together a significant number of stakeholders of the
>   Internet from around the world, and has facilitated discussion of
>   some of the most important issues regarding the redesign of IANA.
> 
>   As suggested by Tamar Frankel, facilitator of the IFWP process,
>   consensus search has been carried out in small break-out sessions,
>   but generally, consensus has not been pursued in the plenary
>   sessions of this meetings.  This allows talk about work-in-progress,
>   without prejudicing results for further meetings, but does not provide
>   a mechanism for aggregating consenus.
> 
>   However, many of the results of the IFWP do seem to reflect clear
>   consensus of the Internet Community, and we believe they have been
>   correctly understood by IANA and incorporated in the Third Iteration
>   of the Bylaws.
> 
>   An important area for which there has been wide agreement was that
>   there be some kind of membership organization associated with the
>   new IANA, with at least some directors elected from a general
>   membership.  Some camps insist that the membership should be of
>   individuals only; others insist that only organizational membership
>   be allowed.
> 
>   The draft Bylaws defer implementation of such a structure, citing
>   several significant difficulties with various implementations of a
>   membership organization.  It is also worth noting that the
>   controversies alluded to above would have to be resolved, and IANA
>   feels (rightly, we believe) that these issues simply cannot be
>   resolved in a time frame consistent with what is required.
> 
>   PAB is uniquely suited to comment on this matter.  It is, in fact,
>   an open membership organization.  It has no financial requirements
>   for membership, such as dues or membership fees.  Nominally, only
>   legal constituted organizations can be members, but, because there
>   is no financial requirement, very small organizations, such as sole
>   proprietorship businesses, have joined.  These are for all
>   practical purposes, individual memberships.
> 
>   PAB has little real power, and has not existed for even a year, yet
>   it has already experienced what can fairly be called an unsuccessful
>   takeover attempt.  This illustrates without a doubt that IANA's
>   concerns are well founded.  An open membership organization with
>   significant power would be a much jucier target than PAB, and
>   implementation of such an organization must proceed very cautiously.
> 
>   That being said, the very existence of PAB is predicated on the
>   worth of membership organizations.
>   We note that the proposed structure of IANA includes
>   half the directors being selected through Support Organizations,
>   with the remaining half selected at large through some as yet
>   undetermined process.  If that process were some sort of election
>   conducted by a carefully constructed member organization, the model
>   would be very close to the PAB/POC model.  We encourage IANA and the
>   interim board to consider this very seriously, and we look forward
>   to working with them on this matter.
> 
> --
> Kent Crispin, PAB Chair                 "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
DEar Kent
Seems OK to me.
I support it.
Best regards.
-- 
KS LIM
LOGIC GROUP OF COMPANIES
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