On Oct 15, 2008, at 15:41, Edward Lewis wrote:
I don't know that a discussion here will do more than just be an exchange amongst us chickens. Unless the WG is trying to send an organized, coordinated message, comments are better directed at the address mentioned in the NoI.
Ed, thanks for the comments and for correcting some potential misunderstandings. I had hoped the intention of a discussion here was already clear. Oh well. So here it is again: IMO the WG has an implicit obligation to make some sort of "official" response to the NTIA. [After all, it could be argued that the Tallinn "sign the root" declaration helped get ICANN and NTIA to where they are today.] So I would like the WG to discuss the various proposals in the NTIA NoI and hopefully reach a technical consensus around that. Maybe we consider one of these approaches acceptable. Or perhaps one of them is unacceptable. Or somehere in between, who knows? And if it's not possible to get a technical consensus from the WG by the deadline, then I hope we can at least agree on some common statement that can be submitted in time: perhaps something neutral but encouraging like "we welcome the NTIA NoI as a positive step towards getting the root signed". However even that depends on the WG discussing the subject. Or if there's no interest or we feel this topic isn't any business of this WG, we can just give up. Which again needs the members of the list to speak up. So, to back up a bit, let me ask the WG some direct questions: [1] Do we care about the NTIA NoI? [2] Should the WG (try to) formulate a response to that NoI? [3] If the answer to [2] is no, why not? [4] If the answer to [2] is yes, what sort of response should the WG try to send? [5] If that response has a technical component, how do we reach a consensus?