Naomasa Maruyama, JPNIC, Observer (ccTLD Const.?), maruyama@nic.ad.jp

Nigel Roberts, .GG, Observer (ccTLD Const.) nigel@nic.gg

Theresa Swinehart, Interim Names Council Member (Business Const.), Theresa.Swinehart@wcom.com

Oscar Robles, LACTLD, Observer (ccTLD Const.), orobles@nic.mx

Susan Anthony, INTA, Interim Names Council Member (IP Const.), susan.anthony@wcom.com

Harold Carroll, .NU/IATLD, Observer (ccTLD Const.), hcarroll@ghlaw.com

C.J. Shen, Taipei Trade Office, affiliation unknown, htaipei@csi.com

J. William Semich, APTLD, Observer (ccTLD Const.), bill@mail.nic.nu

Osten Franberg, .SE, Observer (ccTLD Const.), osten.franberg@lme.ericsson.se

Robert Hall, Observer for CIRA (ccTLD Const.) and CAIP (ISP Const.), rob@echelon.ca

Jonathan Cohen, Interim Names Council Member (IP Const.), jcohen@igs.net

Fay Howard, CENTR, Observer (ccTLD Const.), fay@centr.org

Roberto Gaetano, ETSI, Observer (Non-com Const.), roberto.gaetano@etsi.fr

Edmundo Valenti, CABASE, Observer? (ISP Const.), emv@datamarkets.com.ar

Antony Van Couvering, IATLD, Observer (ccTLD Const.), avc@interport.net

Ted Shapiro, MPA, Names Council member (IP Const.), tshapiro@mpaa.org

Dennis Jennings, CENTR, Observer (ccTLD Const.), dennis.jennings@ucd.ie

Javier Sola, Interim  Names Council Member (Business Const.), jsola@aui.es

Jon Englund, ITAA, Interim Names Council Member (Business Const.), jenglund@itaa.org

Meeting was called to order, Javier Sola was made Chair for this meeting only.

After some preliminaries, including a discussion of whether there was a quorum of Names Council Members (it was decided there was a quorum), Antony Van Couvering volunteered to take the minutes and distribute them.

[Note comments are paraphrases, not verbatim. Any mistakes as to meaning or emphasis are mine.]

Dennis Jennings - ccTLDs will hold an election for their constituency's Names Council members as soon as possible.

Rob Hall - It is dangerous to have an official meetings without sufficient notice.

Javier Sola - Disagrees, it can be an official meeting.

Jon Englund - Expresses worry that notice has not been given as per the bylaws.

Theresa Swinehart - We want to show that we're moving forward, but the meeting should not be regarded as official

Naomasa Maruyama - Some Japanese people were not informed, strongly desires that the meeting be unofficial.

[GENERAL AGREEEMENT - the meeting is unofficial, the phrase "informal gathering" was uttered by several]

Dennis Jennings - An important task is to schedule the next meeting

Javier Sola - That's the most important thing, plus taking important urgent matters in hand now

Naomasa Maruyama - An interim Names Council Member from Japan from the Business Constituency is not present

Javier Sola - Corrects Naomasa, lists the Names Council members from the Business Constituency, none of whom are Japanese

Rob Hall - It might take 4 -6 weeks to elect ccTLD Names Council Members

Bill Semich - It might take much less time than that

Javier Sola - The General Assembly of the DNSO meets once a year, it would make sense to make it at the same time as the annual ICANN Board meeting, in Los Angeles in November 1999.

Rob Hall - There has to be "at least" one meeting a year, there can be more than one.

Jonathan Cohen - The Names Council will have its hands full until November, we can have a Names Council meeting in Santiago in August

Javier Sola - The meeting this morning was informal

[Note This in reference to a meeting of DNSO members earlier that morning at the Unter den Linden Hotel, attending by 50 people, at which issues were identified and people volunteered to be "focal points" for these issues - about 14 in all, according to my recollection.]

Fay Howard - Yes, but this is an informal meeting too.

Javier Sola - Yes, but this is different, this is the Names Council. We must see what we can do now, to get the final Names Council ready to operate.

Bill Semich - What is the mandate, what are the rules, according to the bylaws.

[Jon Englund reads the revelant sections of the bylaws at length.

Highlights are a two-week notice period, with notice posted on "the" web site, with a two-week notice period "where practicable", minutes to beposted.]

Jonathan Cohen - so it could be an official meeting

Jon Englund - No it couldn't. [Re-reads the bylaws. It seems from a second reading that although the two-week notice period could be shortened in exceptional circumstances, there is no provision for no notice at all.]

Theresa Swinehart - We are spending too much time on formal vs. informal. Let's continue.

Nigel Roberts - Without absent members who are not yet elected [e.g., from ccTLD const.], important decisions should not be taken here.

Javier Sola - We won't, but we want to organize some procedures.

Rob Hall - If you're looking for priorities, here's one Should the Names Council be able to appoint an Interim Names Council Member or Observer [Javier Sola and Nigel Roberts send clarification what was meant was an interim member or observer to the *ICANN Board*]. Also, should we ask that the DNSO appoint an observer to the GAC meetings.

Jon Englund - Ideas about our work or our agenda would be useful.

Jonathan Cohen - We need to get a treasurer for our budget, be it large or small, and develop a business plan.

Javier Sola - Can we have volunteers?

Jonathan Cohen - We need to discuss the WIPO report.

Susan Anthony - We need to adopt procedures and policies to create consensus

Antony Van Couvering - That's my purview, I volunteered for that in the meeting this morning.

Fay Howard - [reads list of tasks from the morning meeting and the volunteer "focal points]

Rob Hall - What is the General Assembly? We want as many people as possible.

Theresa Swinehart - It should be online. The once-a-year General Assembly requirement refers only to a face-to-face meeting.

Robert Hall - The work of the DNSO is done in the General Assembly

Javier Sola - No, the Names Council does the work

Antony Van Couvering - The Singapore meeting came up with a set of principles that reflects a compromise between the DNSO group and the Paris Draft group - and the compromise is that the General Assembly does the work through research groups and the Names Council manages and facilitates consensus.

Jon Englund - [Goes over history of the bylaws]

Rob Hall - Is it appropriate to ask the ICANN Board to talk about the intent of the bylaws?

Theresa Swinehart - It seems that this is a disagreement over what is work. There is a time and place for all kinds of work. Let's move on.

Javier Sola - The priority is procedures for voting

Susan Anthony - What is Antony Van Couvering supposed to do in this regard?

Antony Van Couvering - I'll write up a tentative set of procedures and send it out as a target, to stimulate discussion.

Jonathan Cohen - If we want to get going, let's take the list and have continual Names Council meetings, and as it fills in we'll have a good chance to get something done. It's wrong to make substantive decisions with the Names Council as it is. Focal points are a good way to organize things now, let's use focal points until Santiago, then we can turn the issues over to working groups.

Theresa - There are two types of things we need to consider procedural, and substantive. On the procedural side, we have outreach, communications, and so on. Substantively, though, which issues are most important?

Antony Van Couvering - New TLDs in the root, and the WIPO report

Fay Howard - the Y2K problem

Osten Franberg - Stability is important [General discussion about how this could be a problem for the root server committee]

Bill Semich - It's not limited just to root servers, it has to do with all the TLD roots as well

Osten Franberg - Versions of BIND are different with respect to the Y2K problem. Sweden is OK, but other TLDs may be running different versions of BIND. This is important. [Javier Sola sent clarification "Osten volunteered to send a paper on Y2K issues for publication in the website."]

Jonathan Cohen - There are many important issues. Outreach is important politically and substantively. We would be ill-served if we didn't embrace that task. Otherwise, we have new gTLDs, the WIPO report, DNSO procedures, and a business plan. If those were done by Santiago, we would be very happy.

Susan Anthony - The timing of the WIPO report is important and working groups should be established. How do we do it quickly?

Antony Van Couvering - As far as Names Council meetings and the notice requirement, why not schedule an online meeting every two weeks and give notice now, they can always be cancelled if they are not wanted.

Javier Sola - We don't need to give notice for Names Council meetings.

[Javier Sola sent clarification "This was in references to teleconfereces."]

Jon Englund - There must be notice, and it must be on the website. [Javier Sola sent clarification "Jon corrected me and we all agreed that he was right."]

Jonathan Cohen - Let's pick topics and set a new meeting say a month from now, when new Names Council members may have been chosen.

Javier Sola - The important issues are communications, WIPO, procedures, business plan, and outreach/awareness. [Javier Sola sent clarification "there were two more things in my list new gTLDs and the Y2K."]

Naomasa Maruyama - What's the relation between this morning and now. Both are unofficial meetings.

Rob Hall - The important thing is to be able to constitute the next Names Council meeting.

Javier Sola - [Volunteers to organize the next Names Council meeting]

Fay Howard - [Volunteers to organize things for the ccTLDs]