Re: [ga] Concerning the upcoming "rebid" vote

["Roberto Gaetano" <ploki_xyz@hotmail.com>]

William S. Lovell wrote:

>.... If you think ICANN has abided by the MOU and the
>Green and White Papers, etc., you should probably oppose a rebid;
>if you think ICANN has not, and has failed in its obligations, you
>should favor one.
>

I am not sure I agree.

I do believe that, in particular shooting itself in the foot at Accra in 
rejecting the AtLarge proposals of the Bilt committee (considering also the 
huge effort that all parties have put in order to come to some basic 
consensus points), ICANN has shown that it has no intention to fulfil its 
obligations.

The problem is "obligations with who". Does ICANN have obligations with USG, 
or the Internet community? If it is the former, then the reasonment is 
correct: let's ask USG to turn the page.
Let's go for a moment to the "other" decision that ICANN (and NC/DNSO, 
incidentally) has taken disregarding painfully obtained "community 
consensus". Somebody can spell "WG-C"?
In several occasions I have claimed that this whole circus about ICANN 
started with two objectives:
1. introduce new TLDs (and not just 7, but "a lot of")
2. break NSI's monopoly
Several years later, we have an ICANN that wishes to establish contracts 
will ccTLDs (that have operated well until now without any "adult 
supervision" by ICANN), but mysteriously fails to guarantee the separation 
of Registrar and Registry for .com (one of the necessary conditions for fair 
competition).
Only 7 TLDs have been introduced so far, and whoever has attended MdR knows 
how (remember the motivation for changing .air to .airo?).

What will bring a rebid now? I bet on a couple of years of delays, in which 
for instance no new TLDs will be delegated. Well, "nihil sub sole novo", as 
I have asserted way back in 1998 (CORE General Assembly in Washington, DC) 
that the continuation of the statu quo was the real purpose of the White 
Paper, hidden behind a mask of wider democracy. In summary, "change 
everything in order not to change anything" ("Il Gattopardo", famous book of 
Tomasi di Lampedusa on the sicilian society of the 19th Century).

What is the solution? I don't know. I have a lot of sympathy for Paul 
Hoffman's proposal 
(http://www.proper.com/ICANN-notes/dns-root-admin-reform.html, already 
posted but never referenced). I still have to digest the implications of 
some details, but as a whole I like it muuuuuch better than the one tabled 
for voting. Of course, it has the big disadvantage that it has to be read 
and unterstood, is not an easy slogan that can move the masses, in short, it 
is more an IETF approach than a GA-DNSO approach, but in the end it will pay 
because it proposes a reasonable basis of discussion for an alternative, as 
opposed to the 77. Cavalry approach.
May I also suggest another interesting text: 
http://www.alvestrand.no/icann/icann_reform.html. Different ideas, but the 
same effort: to define "what should be fixed", not "who has to fix it". 
IMHO, the only way to have the stakeholders heard.

Let me also comment on the vote.
On the timetable, I wholeheartedly agree with Thomas' approach: let's 
continue the discussion for few days. I honestly don't understand the hurry 
in taking a vote without fully understanding the implications thereof.
On the vote itself, I believe we are shooting ourselves in the foot by 
invoking adult supervision, but I also believe that if the GA is so foolish 
to do it, it has all rights to do it. I belong to the category of people 
that does not want to punish suicide. And in this sense, the more 
last-minute voters we get, the quicker the death. Watch out, though, that 
this result in the GA will be shown as evidence by those who always opposed 
the AtLarge to prove their point: individual users can be captured by a well 
orchestrated campaign, and therefore the power should stay solidly under 
control.
In other words, this will not only suicide GA, but kill hopes for individual 
representation *ever*: even if the "contract" will be rebid, do you *really* 
expect new_co (as it used to be called) not to be subject to pressure from 
commercial interests? With such nice example of flooding the (GA) voting 
registry with people that never debated the issue (in the GA), they will 
have a good point.

In summary, most people on this list has several points of disagreement with 
ICANN. This is the document to discuss and put forward. Let's define "what 
has to be fixed", propose it to ICANN BoD (maybe to NC), and go to a motion 
of censure *if_the_answer_from_the_BoD_is_negative*.
But let's define what we want, instead of saying "We don't know what we 
want, but anyway ICANN can't deliver - daddy, please kick them out!".

Rewgards
Roberto


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