RB and all, RB Hunter wrote:
Transitional Framework from a Business and User Perspective
Scope: Discuss the U.S. Government's appeal for Internet "consensus" in Internet governance and propose organizational structures for the "new organization". Also, comment on the current IANA activity and international meetings initiated by the Internet community.
Overview
For the past 10 years or so, the IANA, an unofficial organization, was responsible for many of the duties outlined in the NTIA's White Paper. However, as the Internet has become more commercial, it was realized by the IANA, U.S. government, and many other members of the Internet community, that the time has come for a more formal, official and established organization transition these responsibilities in addition to other responsibilities into an new non-profit organization. The establishment of this new organization will only benefit the Internet community, as long as the transition from the current IANA is smooth and the process for creating this new organization continues to establish the stability needed for the operations of the global Internet.
From protocols to domain names and IP addressing, the IANA has grown with the Internet from the small academic network to the commercial superhighway that it is today. Whether you think you could of done a better job, who will ever know? The important focus of the present situation is how this old organization will transition to the new one.
The old IANA, headed by Jon Postel, has done an admirable job in a very difficult situation. While many strong voices are advocating their own agenda, the old IANA has tried its best to maintain stability of the global Internet without having adequate power and authority from the U.S. government or the Internet community to effectively evolve into the organization we all hoped it would be.
Yet the IANA overstepped it's authority and gave away valuable IP resources to organizations without even considering the Stakeholders, not to mention the US Tax payer.
Many people claim that Jon Postel has his own agenda, but those are only the ones that don't know him. Jon has done more for the Internet than anyone gives him credit for, whether you want to believe it or not. While I am an advocate in his defense, it is obvious that his role in this new organization should be significantly smaller - a role which he would much rather have, I might add.
We agree that Jon should play a significant key roll in the formation and management of the new non-profit entity mandated by the NTIA in the White Paper. This role however should be in an advisory technical capacity only. Not a board member.
The people of the old organization need to be intimately involved in this transition. They have just as much stake as anyone else, and quite frankly, including Jon Postel, who has worked extremely hard, in vain, to try to make everyone satisfied with Internet governance. How can we ask Jon to step down from all of his duties when he has given so much of his life to the Internet? It is clear that this new organization will not be someone's single agenda, and it would be wise to have Jon's expertise in certain matters available to the new IANA.
Well Jon Postel is certainly not the only person that has dedicated much of his life to the internet. I amongst several others that I know personally have done so as well. In the past the IANA and the Internic have acted in a single entity capacity though jointly many times. This is not to say that they have not done a fair job, but it is is to say that they have not been very good listeners. In January of this year, the IANA took it upon itself to create the ARIN without any real input from the Internet community and subsequently selected the Board of Directors for the ARIN and no public vote will be done for at least 3 years for the ARIN. In addition the IANA decided, yet again without public oversight or Stakeholder consideration to turn over management of IP numbers in the US to the ARIN based on the RFC's 2050 and 1918, which were and still are outdated based on the current marketplace demand. Though the ARIN some several months later after the majority of the best IP address blocks were allocated of course decided that some modification to RFC2050 was needed and post on their web site those loosening restrictions. This was viewed as too little to late, and indeed it was as the larger telcos and ISP's got those /19 or better allocations. This is and will continue to be considered doing things "Behind closed doors" and without stekeholder peer review not to mention any public review as well and yet they gave away a valuable resource that belongs to those stakeholders and the Tax paying public.
While many think they know what is best for the Internet, there are many secret agendas in the participants of this process. The Internet community needs to create an open process where these agendas will be checked and balanced. So many people are concerned with what the Internet can do for them, they miss the fact that this new organization is being created for the good of the Internet as a whole.
Well we have become pretty well known as not being one of those organizations that does not see the whole picture. Rather it has been the IANA and the Internic that has failed to see this big picture.
Domain names are the big issue here. No one cares about protocols or even addresses (for the most part). However, these are currently the main activities of the old IANA.
Domain names are indeed on or the biggest issues, but so are IP address system and the Root structure as well as they are all interrelated.
Without these essential parts of the machine, domain names wouldn't matter. One thing about domain names is pretty certain: there will be many more top level domains when this new organization gets a chance to actually work. Sure, there are a few people who don't want any more TLDs, but the vast majority are advocating many more TLDs, including Jon Postel, who initially requested to add 150+ TLDs to the root.
Than why are only 5 to 7 gTLD's being recommended initially?
All in all, domain names should not be that big of an issue. No matter who is the "CEO" or on a "Board of Directors", they will advocate the creation of many TLDs, maybe an unlimited number of TLDs (which would let the market determine which ones were best).
This is what should happen we agree and could have happened two years ago, but did not. Why? Well the reason why is that the IANA and the Internic were afraid of the Trademark Lobby in the US and that they ignored the greater part of the Internet community and its stakeholdrs.
Transition
Regardless of this speculation, the process of creating this new organization needs to be WIDE open. From corporations, ISPs, academia and end users from around the world, the new organization needs consensus.
There is that word again, "Consensus". It is really undefinable in terms of your context here.
We are not going to get anywhere if we leave 1 person out.
Agreed. This requires much more than consensus it requires MAJORITY VOTE. Or a true Democratic process.
Understandably, however, not everyone will have their opinion turn into policy. That is not consensus. Consensus is the expression of opinions in an open forum, and the approval of some of them by the majority of the participants.
No this is a definition of a DEMOCRATIC PROCESS. MAJORITY VOTE of ALL of the internet community and all of its stakeholders.
Initially, while the end user might not be thoroughly represented, the stakeholders are the key participants. All stakeholders in the process must work together in order to get the organization running by September 30, 1998. While the International Forums are a good start, I would hope that the result of those forums is to have the old IANA sponsor the proposals that are created in the forums. Sponsoring would entail creating compromise among the proposals, submitting it to the stakeholders of the Internet community (participants of these International Forums) for "consensus", and then working with the final proposal to establish this new organization. There will obviously be many proposals, and it is the role of the Internet community to discuss each proposal and work on finding a few good organizational structures which could elect and Interim Board of Directors for the new organization. Once this Board of Directors is elected, the organization has started, and policies will result, including an official organizational structure, which will have the consensus of the Internet community behind it.
Proposal
As an informed user, my opinion will probably be disregarded, and that is unfortunate. Simply because I am not an ISP or huge stakeholder in the game shouldn't mean that my business sense and organizational ideas should be discounted.
We strongly agree that what your status is should not have anything at all to do with your ideas or proposals consideration level.
There are many of use who are much more talented organizationally than some of the stakeholders, and in turn, there are many more stakeholders who know a lot more about the process than I do. In any case, because I will not be able to participate in any of the International Forums, my proposal for the new organization will be given here. I have no agenda. I want to see the Internet work. I want the Internet to remain and grow as the commercial machine that it is, and at the same time, I want people involved in the Internet governance game to be sane, effective, aware and adhering to their constituents, and doing what they feel is best for the Internet.
Personally, I believe that the election of and Interim Board of Directors to start up the organization should be a bottom-up process, starting with the Internet community [A], which is primarily the stakeholders. These stakeholders, in effect, represent the Internet community and can achieve "consensus".
There should not be a "Consensus" model used to select the Interim board, or the final Board of Directors. Rather a Democratic model with Elections that provide for all of the stakeholders and the Internet community should be considered.
A stakeholder should be representatives attending the International Forums as well as anyone else who feels they have a valuable stake in Internet governance. For the most part, this will not include the end user, who is not all that aware of the situation, and as long as stability of the Internet and day to day operations have integrity, they would rather not be involved (except me, of course).
[A] -------------------- |Internet Community| --------------------
From the bottom up, the Internet community would participate in various commissions [B]. I will propose 5 commissions: Domain, Address, Protocol, User, and Nominating. The commissions will be responsible for nominating Interim "Councils" which would represent their interests. The Domain commission would be responsible, in the interim, for domain name issues (once the Interim Board of Directors is elected). The Address commission would be responsible for Address issues and development. The Protocol commission would be responsible for Protocol issues. The User commission would be responsible to represent the end user and various issues. The Nominating commission would be responsible for nominating interim Board members outside in addition to the elections which take place in the various commissions.Any participant may be involved in each of these commissions, but many not be elected to more than 1 council.
We agree with this structure and have already submitted a very similar proposal to the GIAW and the IFWP as well as the current IANA through the response mechanism from the Discussion Draft the IFWP provided. Our only proviso which you do not indicate here is that any of these "Commissions" and any of their proposals must also pass muster from the Stakeholders by majority vote once those proposals are in it's final form. And that any "Line item Veto" that the Board of Directors might have should also pass this muster as well before enactment or implementation.
------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | Domain | | Address | | Protocol | | User | |Nominating| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- [B] | -------------------- |Internet Community| --------------------
From these commissions, the councils would be elected. These councils would represent their commission and have a vote on the Interim Board of Directors. Another idea is for each council to be represented on the Board with 2 seats (with the exception of the nominating commission). The nominating commission would independently nominate people for the Board of Directors who are not involved in the other councils. No council for this commission is needed. This results in diagram [C]:
------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | Domain | | Address | | Protocol | | User | |Independent| | Council | | Council | | Council | | Council | | Board | | | | | | | | | |Nominations| ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | | | | | ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | Domain | | Address | | Protocol | | User | |Nominating| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- [C] | -------------------- |Internet Community| --------------------
Thus, representatives from each council would be voted in to the interim Board of Directors, and the councils as a whole would vote to approve the Independent Board Nominations, who would serve on the Board with equal status. Diagram [D]:
------------- ------------- |Board Reps | + |Board Reps | | (Councils)| |(Ind. Nom.)| ------------- ------------- | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | Domain | | Address | | Protocol | | User | |Independent| | Council | | Council | | Council | | Council | | Board | | | | | | | | | |Nominations| ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | | | | | ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | Domain | | Address | | Protocol | | User | |Nominating| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- [D] | -------------------- |Internet Community| --------------------
Combined, these elected representatives would constitute the interim Board of Directors. The Council members would remain in their respective positions until the interim Board of Directors establishes the legal organization and framework for the election of the Board of Directors and the participation of the Internet community as a whole. The end result would be diagram [E]:
-------------- | Interim | | Board of | | Directors | -------------- | --------------------------- | | ------------- ------------- |Board Reps | + |Board Reps | | (Councils)| |(Ind. Nom.)| ------------- ------------- | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | Domain | | Address | | Protocol | | User | |Independent| | Council | | Council | | Council | | Council | | Board | | | | | | | | | |Nominations| ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | | | | | ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | Domain | | Address | | Protocol | | User | |Nominating| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| |Commission| ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- [D] | -------------------- |Internet Community| --------------------
Of course, this is only a proposal for discussion. This organization structure was only created as the short-term process for establishing the Interim Board of Directors. While it may contain some ideas as to how the final organizational structure is configured, it was created to start discussion as to how this new non-profit organization should be created.
Conclusion
While September 30, 1998 may seem like quite a long time away, there is much work needed on this issue. I hope that this proposal can result in some constructive cooperation and criticism for how the new organization should be created.
We must all actively participate in this process. Criticism of any proposal should include new ideas and suggestions. Negative reaction without the wisdom to suggest specific reforms will not create cooperation within the community, but will merely divide it.
My challenge to all of the stakeholders is to be as agenda-less as possible. It is in your best interest to do so. With competing agendas and self-interest dominating the discussion, no consensus will ever be achieved.
If you took the time to read this, thanks for you time and efforts.
Your welcome and it was very interesting an thoughtful.
*********************************** D. Elliott International Consultant & Mediator Concerned Internet User ***********************************
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Regards, -- Jeffrey A. Williams DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng. Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC. E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com