[wg-c] S/K principles [Was: Working Group C agenda]

[Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>]

	Summarizing the responses, so far, to my request for views on the S/K
principles:

	Ten people have responded.  They seem to agree that, as a general matter,
it would be good to have some meaningful set of principles to guide the
relevant ICANN body or process in selecting new TLDs or TLD registry/pairs.
 They're divided, though, as to whether *this* set of principles is a
useful one.

	Four people expressed support: Bob Connelly, Milton Mueller, Jonathan
Winer (I think his understanding of the principles is that they *don't*
require a registry affirmatively to enforce its charter), & Kendall Dawson
(on the understanding that the principles would not apply to open gTLDs).

	Five people expressed opposition.  Kevin Connolly and Rod Dixon opposed
the requirement that registries enforce limitations on registration.  Mark
Langston argued that there can be no adequate mechanism for telling whether
a registration is consistent with a TLD's charter — registrations in a
chartered TLD should be tied to the registrant's *identity*, not to the
content it provides.  Dave Crocker and Eric Brunner urged that the
principles are too vague, & incapable of concrete application.

	Finally, Tin Wee made the neutral statement that any version of the
principles adopted by the WG should speak to the issue of multilingualism.

	I suspect that the objections that have been raised by Kevin, Rod, Mark,
Dave and Eric can't be addressed by redrafting.  As far as the
Connolly/Dixon/Langston objection is concerned, I'd expect Philip Sheppard
to view the requirement that registries enforce their charters as a
fundamental one, not something he could give up while maintaining the
principles' utility.  (Phil — am I right about this?)  And I think that the
set of principles that would satisfy Dave Crocker and Eric Brunner is so
different from this one that one couldn't get there using this set as a
starting point.  (Dave, Eric — am I right about this?)

	There haven't been very many responses yet, and for all I know a
groundswell of support for S/K is about to manifest itself.  But right now,
opponents outnumber supporters.  Obviously, if there's to be any chance
that the working group will in fact adopt the S/K principles as rough
consensus, a whole lot more people will have to express support.   People —
it's in your hands.

Jon


Jonathan Weinberg
co-chair, WG-C
weinberg@msen.com