RE: [wg-c] Unofficial report on L.A. meeting

[Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>]

	The following members (and non-members) of the WG got together at 8 am PDT
on Wednesday morning: Bob Connelly, Mark Sportack, Chris Johnson, Milton
Mueller, Esther Dyson, Craig Simon, Hye-Young Kang, Dongman Lee, me, Jean
Michel Becar, Michael McNulty, David Maher, Werner Staub, Dave Crocker,
Kent Crispin, Rebecca Nesson, Roger Cochetti, Matthew Hooker, Tony
Rutkowski, Caroline Chicoine, Kilnam Chon, Mark Luker, and possibly other
folks who didn't sign the sign-up sheet.  I think we had some good
exchanges of views.  Roger Cochetti, who hasn't participated much in the
list, spoke at some length explaining his position that too-fast addition
of new gTLDs would be destabilizing and confusing for end users.  Because
my note-taking was only rudimentary, I asked the people who spoke to send
me e-mail summarizing what they had said; alas, only Bob Connelly did.  Bob
emphasized that given the wide divergence between opposing views in the WG,
we might do best to seek "‘acquiescence' rather than consensus" -- that is,
to "come together on a ‘least squares error' basis," seeking the position
that is least unacceptable to the greatest number of people.

	What my notes do reveal, though, is a general (as always, not unanimous)
sense of the meeting that we shouldn't make the mistake of returning the
issues of first principles debated in some of the position papers.  We
*have* already reached rough consensus on some issues.  That's a genuine
accomplishment that we should be proud of, and that we should build on.  To
replay a small part of the conversation: Kent noted that we were all
prepared to support rollout of a reasonable number of new gTLDs in a
reasonable timeframe.  Milton added that we had in fact found rough
consensus on that view, in the context of the compromise proposal to begin
with 6-10 new gTLDs followed by an evaluation period.  He stated that while
that was not the approach he thought best in the abstract (as his position
paper made clear), he was prepared to accept it for purposes of reaching
consensus.  Kent agreed that he would accept it as well.

	Kent also suggested that while many of us support a mix of non-profit and
for-profit gTLDs (indeed, looking at the four most "popular" position
papers, some form of mixed system gets support from most of the signers of
position paper A, plus the signers of B, C, and D), he thought we could
reach rough consensus that it would be safer to *start* with non-profit
registries.  (Please stop me if I'm remembering this, or any other
statement, incorrectly.)

	We didn't take formal votes on anything, since any conclusions reached in
the physical meeting would have to be submitted to the test of rough
consensus on the list in any event.  And it's important to remember that
we're about to request public comments on the position papers, and we'll
want to factor those comments into our analysis.  But I do think that we've
got a good starting point for future work.

Jon


Jonathan Weinberg
weinberg@msen.com