[ga] After Harald's and Jeff's posts

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Jeff and all,

This list has obviously been shocked by Haralds mail. The traffic has 
dramatically dropped. I may however venture an explanation.

As I was mentionned in this mail I received several direct mails expressing 
real concerns about net-democracy as this is stricto-sensu a limitation of 
the most basic democratic liberty and right. Most expressed the concern in 
one way or another that the "Big Brother" was already in action. [one just 
came in saying Staff and Vint now communicated by proxies : Harald and Jeff 
:-) ]

On 12:08 21/03/01, Jeff Williams said:
 > Per and all remaining assembly members,
 >  In my opinion only:
 >  Well of course you are right Per.  But you must understand that Harald
 > takes his orders form "On High" i.e. the ICANN BoD and staff.  This is
 > particularly important when it is to effect "Damage Control", which we
 > have with the Versign contract(s) issue.  So, it is now time to limit the
 > debate and discussion so as to "Quiet Things down" so that not too
 > many waves are made, so to speak....  Can't have negative discussion
 > or positions expressed towards anything that the ICANN BoD wants on
 > a ICANN ML, now can we...  Of course not!  That would be paramount
 > to Sacrilege now wouldn't it?  >;)

I have some difficulties to accept Harald might have been directed to send 
that mail (I suppose you do not command the IEFT Chair and it does not fit 
with the person I quickly met). More probably he self-sensured ourselves 
fearing or having been convinced the discussion went too far (as you say) 
on an ICANN owned support.

Anyway this is a way of censorship. Not the mail itself (that I accept - I 
did not know the rule - even if my three extra mails were to follow on 
Roberto's whis.ky joke) but the impact is.


I am suprised to see the very low press coverage of the issue which is key 
to the Internet future and which has probably the widest ever consensus 
among the "net keepers" in a very few days. I dislike this as it may show a 
disinterest in the whole internet unity issue. Many now feel that "iCANN is 
joining VeriSign" and that legal/commercial actions by large interests may 
now only address the net stability issue and that several private or public 
dismayed replacements for iCANN will appear, seaking for the protection of 
the international law (the UN through the ITU/T).

I do hope that Mike Roberts' slogan "We the iCANN" (a concept he apparently 
faught from A to Z ) will survive. Plan A is not insuring it much more than 
Plan B but it permits to work on it. IMHO the only way to resolve the whole 
issue is to revise in common the RFC.1591 so it becomes the Internet 
Community White Book (and the founding document of a revised ICANN sticking 
back to its initial charter).

In doing this we should use common sense simple, robust and stable ideas:

- the ICANN is the association of the national NICs (main statutory 
members) and TLD Registries.

- anyone operating a non conflicting TLD under minimum stability rules is 
entitled to Membership with an annual fee in direct proportion to its TLD 
management turn over (free DNs are OK by me). [a personnal view: I favor a 
non profit approach of the TLDs, the registrants being actually co-owner of 
the TLD either as share holder or as Member. The TLD subcontracting to 
VeriSign or to others].

- the root is the directory of Members' DNS resources.

- the SO are advisory competence centers for the BoD, Govs, Industry and 
Internet Community. They are formed of a GA and of special interest centers 
(constituencies, clubs, ML, Centers of Interests) freely created or 
gathered and managed towards consensus by concerned professionnals and 
organizations

- netwide interests are represented at the BoD by 9 Directors elected by 
the SO with some constraints on their origins : business: no double 
representation of a the same corporation, cultures and markets: 
geographical diversity, areas of competence and responsibility: three 
Directors from NICs

- stakeholders interests are represented at the BoD by 9 @large Directors: 
5 on a geographical basis, 4 on a specialisation basis (content, telcos, ..)

- according to the priniciple of subsidiarity and not to conflict with 
anti-trust laws, the iCANN duties will be strictly limited to tasks that 
are individual Members cannot perform alone. In such a case iCANN will be 
paid at the price value of the proposed service (complementary budget 
coming from NICs and TLD Membership):

- among these services:
   - root compilation and broadcast
   - TLD registration and conflict resolution arbitration solution
   - DNS related string conflict resolutions (DNs are by no means the only 
way to use the DNS!)
   - IP and Protocol management (IP is by far more important and complex 
than DNs)
   - qualification label of Registrars
   - secretariat for common projects and common document compilation. 
Hosting of common interest sites and ML
   - quarterly meeting organization
   - @large elections organization in cooperation with NICs
   - Survey of Internet Community needs and demands
   - multilingual reference lexical
   - international development plans
   - common interface with international organizations and Govs (GAC)
   - common control and coordination of a root service (SSRAC) and 
development (CRADA)
   - consulting services to the NICs and TLDs
   etc.. etc.. you name it as long as it pays itself.

-  every development aiming at being used by a large number of Members will 
have to be under GNU license.

-  as per the Digital Continuity Association's request: every document 
published by the iCANN will include an explanation on how its helps 
reducing the intenational digital divide.


IMHO, the work done at the WG-Review is a good example of what is possible 
to progressively see that approach adopted.

Jefsey


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