[ga] Thomas' challenge to transparency

["J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@club-internet.fr>]

Dear all,
Thomas rises an interesting issue: would I in ICANN stand for 
"inquisition".  To such a mail there are many ways to respond. I will take 
the challenge that Thomas is honest and not aggressive. We will see from 
his response. If he/we cooperate I will pursue on an issue I do consider as 
societal and of major interest. If he does not I will drop it as another 
"ICANNerie".

On 22:10 01/07/02, Thomas Roessler said:
>Thus, my question still stands (and please answer it in public):  What 
>kind of substance do france@large and germany@large have? Approximate 
>number of members?  Accomplishments in the past?
>
>Some transparency, please.  Right now, it looks more and more (to me) like 
>the organizations you are talking about are slightly more sophisticated 
>versions of INEGroup.


(NB. about transparency, I copied the GA the mail I sent to Thmaos - 
actually I intended it to be sent to all and I did not see that the ReplyTo 
was only to you. Nothing hidden.).

The main issue here is a lack of common work and understanding about what 
is what I call an "Internet Association" to try to render that new form of 
human organization that the nets permit to develop.

Joe Sims in the case of the ICANN tried to construe it as a "no member" 
corporation (Thomas question is "how many members"). The ISOC tried to 
build it as a wide structure with local Chapters and now with free members 
to get some numbers. The Eurolinc projects it as a cooperation of national 
Chapters. Joop, Vittorio and Esther try to set it up as a large (yet small) 
monolith  BC tries to set-it up as a pyramidal representation lobbying 
system. Thomas and Alex try to federate it under their dedicated 
chairmanship, Joop tried to link it to a Charter at the IDNO. Joana, Danny 
and I tried to link it to a procedure as a result of the WG-Review. Eric 
tries to relate it to a personal conceptual figure "the dotcommer". Jeff is 
historically only second to Joe with his INEG. There are several others 
around who tried to figure out the best way to address it, in particular 
many ccTLDs. And Thomas with his "does-not-exist" stuff, which is another 
(not that stupid) way. I understand it and try to build it as a multiple 
small local kernel non committing support structure.

Yet the real Blueprint problem comes from a common understanding and 
agreement on that kind of technico/legal structure we could commonly adopt, 
understand and share.

Up to now, the criteria we observed was that such organizations either 
spent most of their efforts (ICANN, GA, IDNO, ICANNATLARGE.COM) in self 
structuring; either in acting without a proper structure (most of the 
others), either in being lead by an individual supported by a consensus or 
as a group of nearly connected (often local) individuals (usually 
activists, ie students, relaxed employees or univesitaris, unemployed ) .

Now, Thomas tries to be critic (in the good sense I hope) in measuring it 
through its achievements. I am not sure it is a good way because the value 
and the weight of the achievements will be highly subjective. In the case 
of he ICANN I am sure it is not a good way because it is political first.

But the question is worth a real attention. And I think it is a real DNSO 
matter because names are the uniting element on the Internet: domain names, 
mailing lists, ccTLDs relations, @large etc. And the ICANN is one of them.

The question is: which structure, organization, behavior, legal status, 
evaluation, etc.. for that kind of collective interest on the Internet some 
name Association, Center, Constituency, Internet Association, no member 
corporation, consortium, society, club etc... which "unites" people who 
never met, discuss, develop things/ideas/actions in common etc

If this is of interest to some in here I am ready to discuss it. Otherwise 
I will drop it.
jfc