Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed

[Eric Brunner <brunner@world.std.com>]

Mr. Love,

The suggestion to allocate 6-10 along DNSO constituency lines is not
one I find compelling.

First, it means that WG-C could not find a means to an end -- providing
to the NC, hence the DNSO as a body and the ICANN Board, some answer to
any question more complicated than how many power centers are there in
the DNSO. The WG-C charter doesn't task WG-C to go off and find the one
true metric of relative political power within the DNSO, oddly, it tasks
those who accept its framework with finding answers to questions of:

	1. scale, rate, order, subsequent mechanism, and charter, 
	2. process and regulation
	3. governance, characterization, existence, the intellectual
	   property regime, whois, and obligations

Punting on _that_ question and comming up with an answer that simply
recites the intent at Berlin (May '99) and not its realization or the
current balence of forces isn't much of an answer even to that question.

Second, it means that as a body, the NC is only as good as its best
constituency. If no constituency determines that long-term industrial
net peace requires labor to have formal equity in the DNS with capital,
then the plan for the gTLD ".union" will have to be recast somewhere
under the ILO portion of .INT, outside of the gTLD "space" (and most
constructions of "net visibility" or relevence).

Human rights, in particular the right to organize, whether under ILO 169
(Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989), or the broader notion
of right to assemble in the context of the sale of labor, isn't something
any DNSO constituency has bothered much to advance. .SUCKS may have more
sex appeal then .UNION, but did you want consumer ire as your organizing
principle, or labor organization? You may not get a second bite of the
apple for some time.

Third, it means that as a body of bodies, ICANN is only as good as the
DNSO constituencies each in isolation. The Board has no discretionary
capacity to act on the issue of new gTLDs, all discretionary capacity to
act resides in the DNSO constituencies.

Fourth, it means that ICANN will not acquire new constituencies through
the mechanism of gTLD addition, unless some constituency allows this.

You are free of course to advocate a course action most likely to result
in the frustration of your earlier stated aims.

The proposition that WG-C not find a means to an end -- the hard bits of
responding to the charter questions, has been offered previously. This is
the core thesis of the "free market" position, articulated in Position
Paper B, and of course many good people frustrated by difficulty and by
design, will convince themselves of the wisdom of grasping at straws.

I suggest you (and all who haven't yet) actually read Position Papers B
and E, and consider the question of what can be specified -- these are
two extremes of a question of methodology. [The Meuller-Brunner mutual
distaste arises out of more than just a distain for Indians, or for some
college.] Then I suggest you (all) also read Position Papers A and D, and
consider the question of what the best approach to the framework posed by
the charter, and what a compromise might look like. You can read Position
Paper C, or the current IPC Cairo texts (a better choice).

It would be nice if your questions reflected an understanding of the WG-C
interim report, even if you think everyone has the wrong end of the stick.
If you want help figuring out what you don't know, ask. You can form your
own opinion on the utility of the advice offered at your leisure, and that
will be your best guide as to what (or who) is useful and what (or who) is
not. You are of course free to disregard this advise also.

The same applies to the "Eureka@SlashDot" nonsense.


Kitakitamatsinopowaw,
Eric