Re: [ga] Re: Board descisions

["Roberto Gaetano" <ga_chair@hotmail.com>]

Kent,

I'm coming now, after the F1 Grand Prix of Malaysia, to the second and more 
important part of your message.

You wrote:
>
>On Thu, Mar 15, 2001 at 02:43:12PM +0100, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> >   Now, were I the Chairman of the ICANN Board, I would have immediately
> >   replied to Mr. Sclavos that, even if his proposal is interesting, what
> >   ICANN will decide for the future of .org is none of his business.
>
>With all due respect, there may be a reason why Vint is chairman, and
>you are not.  If one is trying to win concessions in a contract,
>sometimes telling your negotiating partner to "stuff it" might not be the
>best way to proceed.

I do agree with you on the first part, but going further with the 
reasonment, I would assume that one person with the experience of Vint would 
have found a polite way to make the remark, would he have been willing to 
make clear (to Verisign and to the Internet community) that the future of 
.org is only determined by ICANN, and is not part of the negotiation.

Having not seen that, I may suspect that this *is* indeed part of the deal.

>
> >   The fact that I did not see so far neither a formal letter, nor even a
> >   statement in Melbourne on the subject, makes me think that ICANN
> >   agrees with this approach.
>
>Of course.  It's a no-brainer, and is exactly what people on this list
>and elsewhere are clamoring for.
>

You mean that of course Verisign decides the future of .org?
I think we have a misunderstanding here. I must have not been sufficiently 
clear.

> >   Joe Sims, in fact, presented this as an advantage of the solution "B"
> >   (the new contract). And this makes me even more suspicious.
>
>Are you misreading what the above letter says?  Clearly, Mr Sclavos is
>concerned that ICANN will throw a bunch of people out of .org, and he
>has been reassured that won't happen.  This is precisely what people
>have been clamoring for.  Why on earth does that make you suspicious?
>

The fact that ICANN will throw people out of .org is so absurd, from my 
point of view, that I was not even taking this into consideration, and I 
tend to believe that neither did Mr. Sclavos.
What I am fearing is that Verisign is willing to grant the $$$ only subject 
to conditions on the future charter of the registry and/or the 
organizational type of the (future competing) Registry.

Verisign uses a language in the letter that assumes that this is a deal, and 
states that this has been discussed.
Or do you think that one of the reasons Mr. Sclavos is CEO of Verisign and 
we don't is that he writes one thing and implies another? ;>)


> >   Why should the new .org operator be forced to do what NSI was supposed
> >   to do since the beginning, and never did (or at least stopped doing
> >   pretty soon) because it was too costly? There must be a reason,
> >   methinks.
> >
> >
> >   Is the reason the "pressure from the Internet community to restore the
> >   original function of .org"? No way.
>
>False.  Prior to this proposal, in fact, it was common to lament that
>.org had been perverted.  I find it quite reasonable that someone would
>think that the Internet community might look with favor on the idea.

You rightfully said "[it] had been perverted". I lament that too. But this 
cannot be fixed anymore.
It would be utterly unfair to apply a more restrictive charter after the 
Registry has been "perverted" for some time: we have to live with that.

>
> > I believe that that the only
> > sensible thing to do is to let it continue as is. If we really think
> > that a specific TLD has to be reserved to non-commercial
> > organizations, we just have to create one for the specific purpose,
> > instead of redesigning .org.
>
>That's fine, and if that's what the Internet community wants, that is
>indeed what they will get.  As I read the contract, there is nothing at
>all that determines what the registration policies for the new registry
>would be.

Correct.
I was talking, though, about the statements on the letter about ICANN's 
intentions, that have not been corrected by ICANN so far.

>
>Moreover, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the ICANN staff
>was trying to get what they considered the best possible deal for the
>internet community out of those discussions, and let the community
>decide whether they were good enough.
>
>[...]
>
> >   The fact that the Registry that will inherit .org must be a non-profit
> >   is spelled out in 5.1.4.
> >
> >   IANAL, but I believe that if ICANN wants to change this, Verisign may
> >   refuse to pay the $5M.
>
>I believe that the phrase "ICANN, at its sole discretion...", trumps that.
>

Not really.
The phrase, conveniently cut in your quote, continues, and reads "ICANN in 
it sole discretion to establish an endowment to be used to fund future 
operating costs of the non-profit entity designated by ICANN as successor 
operator of the .org registry.".
My understanding is that the $$$ are conditional to the fact that the new 
operator is non-profit.

Regards
Roberto


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