Here is another way to look at the IAB and the situation that is developing after the unfortunate decision on the part of the U.S. Government to toss the DNS hot potatoe back to Jon Postel. The U.S. Government's White Paper calls for a CEO and a 15 person Board. Let's imagine that Jon Postel is the "CEO" and the other 15 members of the IAB are the Board. Let's also imagine that this has been the structure of the IANA Inc. for years and that fair and impartial decisions have been made about new TLDs and /8 allocations. NOW...imagine that a transition is taking place. Imagine that each stakeholder is required to line up behind one of the Board members to vote on two things: 1. The new replacement for that Board member 2. The selection of a new CEO Imagine that people lined up as follows...with some imaginary reasons shown in the parenthesis. Imagine that everyone has to fit somewhere under the 15 Board members. <http://www.isi.edu/iab/members.html> "Hypothetical CEO" - Jon Postel -- postel at isi.edu -- IANA -- RFC Editor 1. Brian Carpenter -- brian at hursley.ibm.com -- IAB Chair 2. Steve Bellovin -- smb at research.att.com 3. Jon Crowcroft -- J.Crowcroft at cs.ucl.ac.uk Jim Dixon - jdd at matthew.uk1.vbc.net United Kingdom 4. Steve Deering -- deering at cisco.com 5. Ned Freed -- Ned.Freed at innosoft.com 6. Tony Hain -- tonyhain at microsoft.com Chris Ambler - cambler at iodesign.com (Microsoft employee) Bill Gates and the Remainder of Microsoft 7. Tim Howes -- howes at netscape.com 8. Erik Huizer -- Erik.Huizer at sec.nl 9. Cyndi Jung -- cmj at 3Com.com 10. John Klensin -- klensin at mail1.reston.mci.net -- Liaison to the IESG Vinton Cerf - vcerf at mci.net (MCI) Don Heath - heath at isoc.org (ex-MCI) 11. Robert Moskowitz -- rgm at icsa.net 12. Charlie Perkins -- charles.perkins at sun.com Jeff Williams - jwkckid1 at IX.NETCOM.COM (Java Programmer) 13. Fred Baker -- fred at cisco.com -- IETF/IESG Chair Einar Stefferud - stef at nma.com (IETF) 14. Keith Moore -- "moore at cs.utk.edu -- Liaison from the IESG Craig Simon - cls at flywheel.com (PhD Student) 15. Abel Weinrib -- AWeinrib at ibeam.jf.intel.com -- IRTF Chair, IAB Executive Director OK....I hope you made it this far...given the entire world lined up behind the 15 Board members plus Jon Postel, how would you evolve the system ? I hope this encourages people to think about specific plans and not hypothetical, meta-physical, plans. Now is the time to get down to details... Jim Fleming Unir Corporation - http://www.unir.com 1998 - The Year of the C+@ IS Coordinator for the AM Radio Station Registry - http://www.DOT.AM -------- Logged at Tue Jun 16 11:02:13 MET DST 1998 ---------