Re: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC, TC,Chair prior to co-Chair elections

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

On Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:57:46 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:

>That may or may not be true, but it certainly doesn't follow from the
>simple fact of a monopoly existing.  As I pointed out sometime
>previously, the remedy for Microsoft being a monopoly is not to turn
>management of Microsoft over to an elected group of netizens and
>computer users, and no one considers that as even a remote possibility. 

This analogy is IMO seriously flawed.  Microsoft is a privately owned
company with shareholders whose job is to make money.  The fact they
choose to do so through software and the fact they have built up a
near monopoly in such software is incidental to the fact their
rationale as a company is to make money be selling goods or services.

>Likewise, it simply doesn't follow that the best model for ICANN is 
>democracy.  

ICANN is not set up to make money.  That is not why it exists or was
created.  It was set up to perform a public good function on behalf of
the Internet community and that is to co-ordinate the name and address
space.  It effectively is a souped up replacement for IANA and if we
don't want democracy in ICANN then let's go back to benevolent
dictatorship as one had with Postel (who effectively did control the
root zone despite what the USG said).

As ICANN was created to perform a public good function of behalf of
the internet community it is important that community have a
democratic say in who runs ICANN.  If they do not you then get a self
appointing body such as the IOC which is most well known for its
corrupt practices.

DPF
________________________________________________________________________
<david at farrar dot com>
NZ Usenet FAQs - http://www.dpf.ac.nz/usenet/nz
ICQ 29964527
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