Re: [ga] Some Interesting Reading Material

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, Michael D. Palage wrote:

> ICANN's Seventh Status Report Under ICANN/US Government Memorandum of
> Understanding http://www.icann.org/general/status-report-30jun03.htm

Was this shown to you before it was sent?  (It certainly wasn't shown to
me while I was on the board.  But that's understandable, there were two
business days left in the quarter after my term ended and no doubt the
drafting on this report wasn't begun until ICANN's staff got back into the
office on the last day of the quarter. ;-)

My reading of the report doesn't leave me very impressed.  At ICANN's
current level of staffing (26) and budget ($6,000,000/year, or $1,500,000
for the period covered by the report), this report represents the work of
a lot of people spending a lot of money.  Yet this report, like its
predecessor, reminds me of a child pushing peas around on a plate in an
effort to convince the parents that something has actually been
accomplished.

ICANN has some solid accomplishments - the nominating commitee did a fine
job. And ICANN's role in IDN's has been, as I mentioned in my final report
to the board, an example of ICANN at its finest - acting as a facilitator
helping others to reach agreement and closure.  I think that ICANN could
justifiably crow a bit about that discussions of privacy versus whois are
finally happening.

But the report contains too many effusive adjectives that mask important
tasks that have not moved forward - such as coming to an accord with the
Root Server Operators or the RIRs.  (I don't count the status quo of
mutual recognition across a no-mans land of suspicion, even if there is a
conveyance of cash involved, to be the kind of ICANN-overisight role that
was contemplated when ICANN was formed.)  And I have yet to see a flow of
people into the AL*C that is more than an already drying-up trickle; it
certainly pales when compared to the rate of sign-ups, cumulating to
178,000 people, that happened during year 2000 when there were direct
elections to be held.

And security of root servers is still in a deep freeze.

The IANA function - the report lists lots of numbers assigned.  I estimate
that each number takes far less than 5 minutes work to assign.  However,
even with that estimate, this absolutely core function, perhaps ICANN's
only technical function, takes about 41 hours per month - one person
quarter time.  Toss in a couple of hours for web page updates for new 
lists of numbers (registry creation) and we still have trouble covering a 
half-time person.  This leaves a question about what those other 25.5 
people on staff are doing.

By-the-way how many new TLDs were allocated during the quarter?  (or past
year, or past two years... ?)  ;-)

		--karl--








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