RIPE Statement on the Draft Articles and Bylaws for the new IANA as published on September 17th 1998 Edinburgh, 25 September 1998 RIPE is the organisation which has provided the framework for Internet co-operation in Europe since 1989. At the 31st RIPE meeting, held in Edinburgh from 23 until 25 September 1998, 253 participants from the European Internet industry discussed the fourth draft of the Bylaws of the New IANA, published on 17 September by IANA, and decided unanimously to express the following concerns. - We find it inappropriate that provision is made in the Bylaws (Article IV, Section 1.d) which binds the new IANA to agreements to be made between third parties, whose terms are not yet announced. - We need to understand and consider the material consequences of Article IV, Section 1.e in order to determine whether we can accept this section. - We are concerned about the room for interpretation in Article V, Section 6 and would like to see a stronger requirement of diversity than to allow 50% of the board to be from one region. - We are concerned about the far-reaching repercussions of codifying, at this stage, aspects of a possible membership structure that previously were left for the Initial Board to define and implement. We do not understand the reason for the fact that the board members nominated by the supporting organisations have no say at all in how the membership structure is implemented (V.4.a.iv, V.9.c). - We need to understand the reasons for and the material consequences of the weakening of the language in Section VI.1.c which now speaks of recommendations by the supporting organisations to the board. - It appears that the change in wording of Article III.2 may now imply that minutes of supporting organisation bodies have to be approved by the Board of the new IANA. We find this inappropriate. - We are anxious about the possible consequences of the changes made to the requirements for supporting organisations, especially in Article VI, Sections 2 and 3.b. In the area of the address supporting organisation the participation of individuals and individual organisations currently happens at the local and regional levels. Many European ccTLD registries already operate similar processes; others have begun working along these lines. We need to understand whether the Bylaws allow for this practice to continue or if they constrain the supporting organisations sufficiently to require changes in these structures. We stress that we have no difficulty with the added openness requirements. We are willing to work to resolve the remaining issues with all parties concerned as soon as possible, and hope that this statement, expressing our concerns, will be received as a helpful contribution to the process. We urge all concerned not to proceed with the current proposal before our concerns are addressed. In the meantime the current IANA should continue to function and provide its services to us. Rob Blokzijl Chairman RIPE -------- Logged at Wed Sep 30 16:51:42 MET DST 1998 ---------