Re: [wg-c] breaking up (names) is hard to do

[John Charles Broomfield <jbroom@manta.outremer.com>]

> > > Re-bidding only limits the time that this arms race can take place,
> > > probably making it even more frenzied.
> > 
> > Dynamics of the situation don't need to work that way -- mostly, you 
> > expect that the incumbent registry operator would try to do a good 
> > job, because it hopes to win the new bid.  I should point out, BTW, 
> > that the rebid is not required to only consider cost.  Other 
> > factors, such as current experience, the unavoidable costs of changing, 
> > and the risks of instability, are certain to be considered, as well.  
> > In other words, the bids will be evaluated on a number of criteria, 
> > and simple low-ball bids will be rejected.  
> 
> Says who? You keep heaping these conditionals on as if they
> were fact. They are not.
> 
> Until you rigidly define what "bidding" is, you're spitting in the
> wind, and your rhetoric is tiresome.

Ok, let's have a go at this one then. You and I agree that not much is going
to be done until we find out what the final situation is going to be wrt
NSI. Trying to knock down bidding, or knocking down any other situation is
not going to get us anywhere. You also like to get others to put their
arguments forward. How about trying to help out on this one? (yes I know
it's not in your best interest... but maybe you would be able through trying
to get a solution to reach a situation you like, or even better to prove the
unworkability of it).
How about if we try to clarify what certain concepts would be (there are a
limited number of different options, if we clear them up, once we get a
final on NSI, we'll have that in front of us)?

I'd like to go and argue on how a tender and periodic rebid would work, if
that were the only option around. (as personally I feel it the most likely
scenario I like to think it is not wasted time, but that's just my little
dream).

If we want to protect ICANN from having to fight it out with little help at
it's hands (hey, we want to make it lean, not bogged down with loads of Joe
Simms clones), then a tender would have to satisfy this criteria:
ICANN wants offers for entities willing to run a TLD registry:
-entity must state price at which it is willing to do so.
-entity must use standard or openly specified hooks for the registrars to
 lock into.
-entity must keep a regularly (daily?) updated escrowed database which could
 be at immediate notice taken up by any number of other TLD registry
 operators, and must accept random proof testing of this database.
-concession would be for X months/years, after which time the tender would
 again reopen.

Any ideas on how to improve it?

> > 1) It doesn't necessarily mean that at all --there have been some
> > well-publicized cases in the US of poorly run charities, but on the
> > whole, non-profits do what they claim.  Furthermore, we do have
> > concrete examples to the contrary -- namely Nominet.  2) Most of the
> > work, indeed almost all of the work, would be done by the bidding
> > contractor, which could be for-profit, in any case. 
> > 
> > (BTW, Note that the phrase usually includes "cost-recovery".)
> 
> And how much does Michael Roberts cost? Is that cost being
> recovered well? ICANN and it's huge debt and budget puts the 
> lie to your theory.

How much would you value the salary of a position of CEO of ICANN? It's a
salary that has to be paid. That's where the cost recovery is. Maybe the
salary of Michael Roberts is overblown... A large part of the huge debt of
ICANN can be accounted for because of the enormous legal fees so far (and I
can only see them getting bigger actually).

> *plonk*
(Hmmm, another couple that don't want to have children methinks.)

Yours, John Broomfield.