Subject: Re: [ifwp] Re: regarding potential new IANA initial board members

From: Jim Dixon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 09:46:26 +0100 (BST)

On Sun, 27 Sep 1998, Gordon Cook wrote:

> I have one very simple question.......  who is going to take the time to
> educate these august folk?  To say they can make meaningful policy without
> *SOME* knowledge is absurd.
> 
> what we have is a recipe to leave the IANA technical staff and ISOC in full
> control.  

This in fact does seem to be the obvious consequence of IANA's insistence
that any potential candidates for the board of the new corporation should
not be anyone involved in the public debate on the issues and obvious 
preference for people with no understanding of the industry at all.  

What would be good for ICANN/IANA would be the opposite policy: a preference 
for those who have demonstrated in public a good understanding of the
issues involved, together with a policy of balancing representation from
different regions and sectors of the Internet community.  

The 4:3:2:1 formula apparently being used for regional balance on the 
Initial Board is not at all bad.  Sectoral representation seems to be 
very poor; if the lists of candidate Interim Board members that I have
heard are correct, IANA's preference for pristine ignorance has given us
a board that represents remarkably little of the Internet industry and 
will take a year or two to come up to speed on the issues -- by which
time they should be replaced.

>          Yes by all means t hey should control the implimentation of the
> bits....[a la vixie and malamud's complaint] but someone who understands
> the politics and econmics and commerce has to control the technical folk
> from the board.  When jon puts forth criteria that would exclude someone
> like einar stefferud who was one of the builders of the internet, is a
> senior retired individual, is perhaps the best diplomat in the internet and
> has devoted huge amounts of time over the past year to help craft a process
> that would preserve the integrity and independence of the net from special
> interests, the process is totally broken.

While Stef may or may not be the ideal candidate for a position on the 
Interim Board, and while I can't say that I agree with all of Stef's 
ideas, a set of rules that specifically excludes him because he understands
the issues and has a position that is widely supported is absurd.  The 
grounds that IANA uses to exclude Stef are exactly those that would be 
used to give Stef preference in a normal selection process.

Given what appears to be a breakdown in negotiations between IANA and NSI,
it appears likely that the creation of the new corporation will be delayed,
giving IANA a chance to reconsider this badly-chosen selection process.

[Disclaimer: as I have told the EuroISPA Council, I am not a candidate 
for a position on the ICANN Initial Board or permanent Board.]

--
Jim Dixon                                                 Managing Director
VBCnet GB Ltd                http://www.vbc.net        tel +44 117 929 1316
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Member of Council                               Telecommunications Director
Internet Services Providers Association                       EuroISPA EEIG
http://www.ispa.org.uk                              http://www.euroispa.org
tel +44 171 976 0679                                    tel +32 2 503 22 65

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From: Jim Dixon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 09:46:26 +0100 (BST)