Hello, maybe I can come in the debate with some practical experiences from the ccTLD side as we are suffering some problems since some time. On 08.10.2002 21:53 Hans Petter Holen <hpholen@tiscali.no> wrote:

--On 8. oktober 2002 11:06 +0900 Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:

...

to paraphrase from a private conversation:

note that the iana function is the only formal link between the ietf and the registries, and we should be careful of what we break. the ietf does not want to start writing rir (and N other fiefdoms) consideration sections in rfcs.

So a design criteria for whatever scenario we are looking at should be to maintain this link. (ie co-organisation of the IETF-IANA function and the RIR-IANA function.

...

there are a number of different roles of the iana function, what different parties need from the iana function, and their/our respective relationships to and through the iana. the rir position seems to be to break away from the iana. the ietf position, such as it is, seems more to coordinate the non-dnso iana functions in the iana in a way well detached from icann dnso politics.

I think the root of the concern is the strong link between the percived

de

facto policy makers (ICANN staff) and the IANA staff.

I belive this concern is only true if it is in fact so that ICANN staff makes policy desicions (or suggests them to the board who ratifies them without public process)

that is unfortunately done on a regular basis at least in the ccTLD area and you should be aware that unless there are no contractual safegards they may try it for the RIRs.

The cause for this concern is that while some of us see something as a policy desicion others don't.

The very fundamental question is perhaps: - Are there any desicions at all to be taken by ICANN which does not require an open transparent process ?

In the domain area ICANN have took a lot of decisions in the past without using an open and transparent process even when ccTLDs told them not to do so and - and - that was the biggest surprise to me - nobody - including the ICANN board - cares. It starts with the complete ignorance in how ccTLDs want to organize themselves, unilateral changes in the IANA policies, blocking of necesarry technical changes, developing a new CC-structure wihin ICANN without taking into account the work of the ccSO ...

Looking carefully at that question I realise that it can be generalized: - Are there any desicions at all to be taken by X which does not require

an

open transparent process ?

where X = {ICANN, RIPE NCC, ARIN, APNIC, IETF, ASO, ...}

and this it is where it gets interesting:

the question should be if X=ICANN thinks they don't need an open & transparent process has Y= (RIPE NCC, ARIN, APNIC, IETF, ASO, ...) the possibility to stop them to implement policies just by doing.

- the concern is exactly the same at both sides of the ICANN vs RIR discussion...

-hph

Sabine -- Sabine Dolderer DENIC eG Wiesenhüttenplatz 26 D-60329 Frankfurt eMail: Sabine.Dolderer@denic.de Fon: +49 69 27235 0 Fax: +49 69 27235 235