Re: [icann-eu] Re: [ga] DNSO funding and the NCDNHC

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Dear Mike,
How are you doing now you may relax from being the man on the spot? I hope 
you enjoy life and entertain yourself with the spectacle of the wild wide 
world?.

IMHO what you say brings a lot of fuel to Eric's [wrong] assumptions...

On 00:37 02/05/01, Mike Roberts said:
>The requirement under the Internal Revenue code section 501c3 is that all 
>of ICANN's activities be conducted for "scientific and educational 
>purposes."  This is the same section used by all non-profit U.S. 
>universities and research organizations.
>
>All of ICANN's activities fall under this tax language.  For legal 
>purposes, ICANN's mission is stated in its articles of incorporation. See: 
><http://www.icann.org/general/articles.htm>
>- Mike

This seems pretty worrying to me. You might want to elaborate on the way 
building a duopoly with VeriSign as per Plan B and conducting tough 
negotiations with gTLD after having  discriminated between commercial gTLDs 
applications leading to industrial and commercial powers are "scientific 
and educational" occupations, or even "charitable".

I accept that in the bootstrap period the iCANN practised self-education 
and that to some extent @large experiment and study could be presented as 
research towards world government systems and educational to some extent. 
But I don't see plethoras of students coming in MDR to get a MBNet and 
Louis Touton's R&D seems more buck than bits or bug oriented. Charity seems 
disputable when 80% of the Domain Name (small) holders are denied a fair 
representation at the DNSO and the NomCom are denied NC voting rights (and 
hence access to the BoD) on financial grounds.

We all wished the iCANN to stay a university-style organization, fulfilling 
its White Paper role and working on a worldwide consensus, in an inclusive 
"all-together" and "WE the iCANN" style. It seems you have been entrapped 
into something quite different - you better than anyone else can tell 
why.  But today iCANN is all but "scientific and reasearch" to many.

And charitable to none. I asked you once charity: as you were entitled to 
do it do drop or reduce the $50.000 fee to apply an innovative ccTLD to be 
donated to the Internet Community by a non profit organization. You 
responded that if we intended to enter the "international TLD business" I 
had better to be prepared to its costs and professional fees. Your perfect 
right to respond this (IMHO wrong) way; but it shown us that you were not 
in the charity business.

OK. I accept that you will certainly not comment on the tax aspect. But may 
be will you want to give us, from your experience, orientations regarding 
the way to reform the iCANN and avoid what many of us now consider as 
inevitable, i.e. a collapse by e-bureaucracy excess. There are too many 
complex things tight together in a small unit which call for too many 
responses in too many uncertain international legal, technical, commercial 
controverted fields. The thread of a world-wide instability should the 
iCANN be shaken will not protect: if it was true the more we wait the more 
the risk would be important, so better to review the iCANN ASAP.

You were the first to explain us the situation at MDR meeting and after, 
explaining the delays regarding the @large study document, by the load 
of  the gTLD application review. I certainly believe that the Staff and you 
- it seems your are called upon from time to time (shows you are in good 
shape!)  - may respond to the current and foreseeable work load for a few 
months. But could iCANN really sustain the load of simultaneous Congress, 
tax, anti-trust, Intl., DoC only preliminary investigations? I recall IBM 
proposing to change its CEO everyday, so the one spending the day at the 
investigators disposal would not be the one managing the company. But one 
President or a Chair a day for the iCANN, with the same political spirit, 
this seems beyond the realm of the possible.

They would probably pay a lot Joe Sims and his partners to respond. But who 
would then conduct the policy?  We all saw your very well oiled show with 
Louis and Andrew in MDR. A perfect ballet with occasional support from Joe. 
Bravo. But we also saw you were the boss and that you took over several 
times, pushing Andrew or interrupting Louis. Let assume Stuart will cope 
with the situation as you did, or even better. From experience could you 
grant us that the show would have been the same had you then been in DC, 
Andrew in Tokyo and Louis exhausted by working with Joe's people night 
after night? IMHO there would be discrepancies among the individual Staff 
responses. Look at the public response to Louis Touton's testimony last 
year: let just multiply it by 10 or even by 3. Do you think the Staff could 
foot the bill?

Tell us candidly (some non@large Directors speak) if the Staff's love and 
now BoD's one for emergency decisions, and the lack of budget for the NC 
and the DNSO/GA, are real political decision or the result if a practical 
inability for the Staff and Directors to cope with the load of DNSO 
standard relations? Is that not true in many other area? Starting with the 
root?

I wish you the best and most active retirement.
Jefsey










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