[ga] Re: Board descisions

["Siegfried Langenbach" <svl@nrw.net>]

Thanks for the quick reaction,
I also added some comments, as I will not be in Melbourne.

On 8 Mar 01, at 13:11, vint cerf wrote:

> Dear Mr. Langenbach,
> 
> Thank you for taking time to let us know your views in these matters.
> 
> Please see a few comments below.
> 
> Vint Cerf
> 
> At 06:23 PM 3/8/2001 +0100, Siegfried Langenbach wrote:
> >Mr Chairman, members of the ICANN board,
> >
> > these is an open mail expressing my concerns about the way 
> >ICANN's board is acting. 
> >
> > as an individual who was and is involved in these process from the 
> >very beginning I feel to have the right to address all of you. 
> >
> > It seems to me that, in contrary to the original intention, decisions 
> >are taken from board, even worse from boards excom only (or from 
> >staff?), without proper consultation of NC or DNSO and equivalent 
> >bodies.
> > Yes, you have the power to do so, but you should be aware that 
> >on the long run you will loose credibility. Are you discussing 
> >matters to be decided by the board, with those which elected you ? 
> >Perhaps, but I never heard of that. Instead you are using the very 
> >old argument of time-pressure to skip proper consensus building.
> >
> > Let me give you some examples:
> >
> >1.) selection of new TLD's . Without going into details : The way 
> >how Joe Sims directed the board, by having them voting 3 (three!!!) 
> >times until the board recognized how Joe wanted them to vote 
> >(change .web to .info), showed the interested how familiar the 
> >board was with the matter they were deciding. Consultation could 
> >have helped.
> 
> The Board is entitled to counsel from its outside counsel
> and from its general counsel and others. Ultimately the decision
> was the Board's and not Joe Sims'.
> 
I agree that's nothing wrong in having Joe as counsel, as it would 
not be wrong to have NC and DNSO as counsel.

> 
> >2.) Internationalizing of domainnames or multi-lingual-mess. With 
> >all respect, these is nationalizing not internationalizing : are you 
> >really convinced that toshiba will use the japanese equivalent as 
> >domainname internationally? It could have some sence if national 
> >ccTLD's would do it, but they have too much respect for the 
> >process to overpass IETF and other. Nobody seems to care about 
> >the practicably : making money is more important. Should have 
> >been worked on before starting a so called testbed. Most confusing 
> >is the fact that ICANN on one side warns on the other side 
> >supports VeriSign's activities.
> 
> Here I strongly disagree - I have been on record repeatedly 
> expressing concern about many of the efforts to explore internationalizing
> of domain names - the technical problems are quite serious and so are
> the various jurisdictional questions. ICANN, however, may not have
> the ability to prevent experiments from happening. In some sense, anything
> that is technically possible on the Internet is likely to become the
> subject of experimentation - ranging from multi-lingual TLD efforts to
> alternate roots and many things in between (including things like
> telephony, video casting and so on). There is risk taken by anyone who
> participates in an experiment or a testbed that is not specifically
> sanctioned - ICANN can raise issues to assure public awareness of risk
> but it may have no ability to prevent these experiments from occuring.
> 
I am happy to learn that you are also reluctand. I personally would 
have problems to allow VeriSign to filter domains ( --bq ) under 
such circumstances. We can not blame people when they percept 
that as support.
> 
> >last not least
> >3.) Splitting com-net-org registry / registrar. I simply refuse to 
> >believe that the board is willing to cancel that part of the contract.
> >The argument astonishing : One of the main intentions of the whole 
> >construct was to weaken the power of an monopolist (NSI), now we 
> >seem to see that it works (does it really?) we try to disrupt that 
> >process instead to be happy that it works as it was intended to do.
> >I might be worng but I could not find that the matter was brought to 
> >NC and DNSO...
> 
> Nothing has been decided here at all - there is a proposal on the
> table and the Board has yet to discuss it - though it will do so
> during the Australian Board meeting this week. I don't believe any
> decision will be made during this board meeting but because of
> the various timing elements in the equation, the Board may have
> to make a decision by the end of March or the opportunity may be
> lost. 
> 
> NSI's dominant position as registrar appears to have eroded
> considerably in the last 12 months, according to statistics
> that I have seen - perhaps you have different views on that point?
> 
about the stats ? not really ( I was a statistician half my life and 
know that can only trust on my on stats :-))
so the question is : why cancel the rules which had the success 
they were made for ? because of the success ?

siegfried

> 
> 
> > I recognize that I am only an individual, perhaps with strange ideas 
> >such as that I would prefer the slower and not so easy democratic 
> >way instead of the more efficient board-alone decisions, but 
> >remember an head without an body is not really what you want.
> 
> I think we want ample and public board discussion on these matters -
> ultimately the board must make policy choices and it is a fine balance
> between endless debate among many parties - losing opportunities for
> lack of closure, and inadequate discussion. I hope we are able to find
> that balance to the satisfaction of most observers - we will never
> satisfy everyone, I think.
> 
> Vint
> 
> 
> > Elected members should be responsible to those which elected 
> >them, but not only at election time.
> >
> >
> >Siegfried Langenbach
> >joker.com 
> 
> 



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