On Fri, 19 Sep 1997, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
On Thu, 18 Sep 1997 22:30:46 +0000 you said:
RIPE-27-TLD-5: - RIPE to nominate European candidate to iPOC seat. [?]
As a former IAHC and iPOC member let me ask a few questions:
a) How does one define what Europe is? b) If you use the conventional definition of Europe, then why would not Africa, North America, Asia and the Middle East each request a seat? c) How do you then not make the process political - rather than functional? d) Europe has 2 people currently sitting on iPOC: Geert Glas, appointed by INTA (a lawyer) and Patrik Falstrom appointed by the IAB (a techie from Tele2). How do these people *not* serve a *European* perspective? (Don't forget the WIPO and ITU reps who live and work in Geneva who also sit on the iPOC - and you get to a total of 4 resident Europeans currently on the iPOC - a number way out of proportion to Europe's size)
If you measure things in Internet terms, by looking at host counts, for example, Europe represents something like 25% of the Internet.
From this point of view, two seats are insufficient.
Of course, if you look at things from a functional point of view, the Internet itself is seriously under-represented on the iPOC. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015 -------- Logged at Sat Sep 20 23:39:57 MET DST 1997 ---------