Re: [ga] Status of the Review Task Force

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

On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> It was my intention to post a message to communicate my frustration for the 
> lack of progress of the Review Task Force, which indicates, IMHO, the lack 
> of willingness and/or capability by the DNSO to proactively reform itself.
> Then I read the pending messages, and in particular the different documents 
> related to AtLarge studies. These support "de facto" the 
> Individual/Registrants proposal and implicitely identify problems in the 
> current DNSO.
> I am now wondering whether the Task Force itself is not overcome by events. 
> Why argue on the criteria for the creation of a Constituency within this 
> DNSO when the alternative can be a role in a different SO?
> I think that this should be a central point in the next days, 
> pre-Montevideo. What do GA members think? Does the idea of an ALSO obsolesce 
> the request for an IDNH Constituency?

	Something really interesting in the ALSC report is the concept,
repeated several times, that the ICANN Board should be set up to reflect a
three-way "balance among developers, providers and users."  That's the
basis for the ALSC's proposal that the ALSO should get exactly six seats
on the Board: It gets one-third of the Board because its function is to
represent users, who are one of the three groups entitled to
representation.

	It's worth thinking about what this means for the *other* entities
that currently select ICANN Board members, though. If we take this
"balance" seriously, then it suggests that the "developers of Internet
standards" -- that is, the PSO -- get six seats, and that the "providers
of the domain name and address system" get six.  Who are those
"providers," though?  Presumably, they include the (IP address) Regional
Internet Registries currently represented in the ASO, and the domain-name
registries and registrars currently represented in the DNSO.  But they
*don't* include the business constituency, or the IP constituency, or the
ISPs, or the non-commercial organizations' constituency.  None of those
folks are providers of the domain-name system; rather, they're users of
that system.  And user representation comes through the At-Large
Supporting Organization.  So their representation, under the report's
three-way split, should come not through the DNSO but through their
participation in ALSO elections.

	To be sure, the report doesn't say that explicitly.  Rather, it
says: "We assume that the DNSO will reorganize to achieve a more effective
structure and decision-making process, and therefore did not suggest a
specific assignment of the non-At-Large seats."  But I think that for
better or worse, that approach (which was the explicit basis for "Option
A" in the committee's options template) is implicit in at least some of
the report's language.

Jon


Jonathan Weinberg
weinberg@msen.com



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