Subject: Magaziner says "I think there will need to be at least one more draft to achieve a broad enough consensus." (fwd)

From: Bob Allisat <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 12:36:32 -0400 (EDT)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 11:49:54 -0400
From: Gordon Cook <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Magaziner says "I think there will need to be at least one more
draft to achieve a broad enough consensus."

The following is the text of the interview that I conducted with Ira
yesterday at 3pm.  Ira's responses below have been reviewed by him and
accepted with some minor word smithing on his part from the draft I sent
him.  The final sentence he added this morning in response to an open ended
question from me attached last night to the draft.

COOK Report: It looks that progress is indeed being made.  But there are
critical unresolved issues. Namely the extent of the powers of the board of
the new corporation, how the initial board members will be selected and
indeed who the initial board members shall be and how responsible to the
stakeholders in the area of protocols, IP numbers, and domain names the
board members will be.  From conversations I have had with people, it is my
understanding that Postal and his lawyers are not inclined to compromise
with NSI on the issue of board members and their power.  I have also been
told that NSI and Postal have agreed on criteria for board member
nominations but that the criteria are that they must not have been major
players in the DNS wars, yet at the same time must be technically
knowledgeable and squeaky clean and as far as any possible conflicts of
interests could be concerned.  Nice criteria, but criteria that will
possibly make it exceptionally difficult to find anyone qualified for a
board position.  And yet despite the critical nature of these unresolved
issues, there is the impression that things do indeed turn to pumpkins on
October first if the new IANA is not incorporated.

What is your position on driving for the resolution of everything that
needs to be resolved in the short amount of time remaining?  If I remember
correctly, when we talked in midsummer, you said that October first was not
necessarily engraved in granite and my concern is that, if the parties have
to go forward negotiating under the gun to the very last-minute, what is
incorporated will not have any resolution to these serious issues. And that
the result will be the creation of a severely flawed IANA Corporation.

Given this context and these concerns, what can you tell me about your
expectations for the further evolution of this situation between now an
October first?

Magaziner: We are still looking for a consensus proposal which includes a
set of bylaws and an interim Board of Directors that has broad-based
consensus by October first.  We are pleased that progress has been made but
feel that there is still a lot of work that remains to be done.  We have
less than ten days left and would like to see work continue around the
clock.

COOK Report: Well perhaps I might speculate that you will be watching the
results very closely and given the enormous effort that you have gone to,
you are not likely to accept anything at the last-minute that is obviously
flawed, but that you are reluctant to telegraph what your punches may be in
advance of being in a situation where you absolutely need to make the most
critical of decisions?

Magaziner: Well you may of course speculate about a lot of things.

COOK Report: Okay.  But to change my line of questioning, how do you
propose to guard against a situation where IANA and NSI come to you at the
very last moment and hand you a document that they are happy with but that
other stakeholders aren't not pleased with?

Magaziner: My impression is that both IANA and NSI have been in touch with
the wide numbers of other parties and are incorporating the position of
those parties in their negotiations.

COOK Report: I have been told that to some extent this is going on but I am
also that serious stakeholders have so far failed to get their concerns
adequately addressed.  Is inaccurate to say that IANA and NSI have been
serving as the means for enabling the expression of stakeholder interests?

Magaziner: I don't know.  I think we have to see how this develops.  The
two of them certainly produced the latest draft.  But before taking further
steps we need to see what the broader reaction to the draft is.  If you get
large numbers of stakeholder groups saying that this latest draft is not
legitimate, then we will have a serious problem which we will try to
address.

This is an iterative process.  At some point the stakeholders will get far
enough so that they can form an organization with an interim board.  This
doesn't mean that all issues are resolved, the new board will continue the
process.  There will still be oversight going on after October first by the
US government, in consultation with other governments, for a period of time
afterwards.  The bylaws, as agreed on in this current draft, are written to
be flexible and to be amended over time.

COOK Report: And this period of oversight is to end, at the very latest, by
October first of the year 2000. Correct?

Magaziner Yes.  And so at the very outside there's two years of oversight
though hopefully it will be a lot shorter than that.  But what I am
suggesting to you is that if you get sufficient consensus to form an
organization with an interim board, there is still going to be a lot of
evolution after that initial formation.  That evolution will take place
under governmental oversight for a period of time to ensure that consensus
is maintained.

COOK Report: Are you saying that in a worst-case situation, that if we had
an organization formed where the board acted in a way that was contrary to
the interests of the protocols, names, or numbers council's that all
parties would know that they faced a real possibility of the government
reaching in to correct the situation?

Magaziner: Yes, though this is not what we desire.  And basically the
principles of the white paper are still the principles toward which we're
trying to work. The key I think is that the bylaws as they presently exist,
will give the new organization a reasonable amount of evolutionary
flexibility. I think that the government role that we envision, and the
government role that we been exercising since the white paper is only a
backup role.  The private parties directly involved are forming the
policies.  We are there to act only if things go off track.

COOK Report: You're kind of like the referee in the boxing match

Magaziner: Yes.  There to act in the breach.  Our main concern is to help
build consensus.  And we want to see a process between now and the end of
the month that continues to increase consensus.  If things started to fall
apart in November, December and January, we would not come in and take
things over, but we would intervene by telling the parties that they are
losing their consensus and that they better act in such a way so as to get
it back.

COOK Report: Because if you don't get it back, you will not reach the end
of the period of government oversight.

Magaziner: Yes.  But I think it is important to say that we would prefer
not to postpone the formation of the Corporation beyond the October first
deadline.  We have to keep making progress.  We have made much progress
since June.  I believe that we shall make more between now and October
first, and shall continue to make progress after October first.  What has
now evolved into these groups negotiating, may next evolve in to an interim
board with a set of bylaws that are flexible, and a continuing set of
discussions.

COOK Report: Suppose you get to the end of the month and you have only an
agreement on a bare minimum of three people necessary for an incorporation
board?  Could you go ahead on that basis without having a complete interim
board named and chosen?

Magaziner: While we'd very much like to see a complete interim board, we
realize that we might face a situation where it was not complete.  Every
step that can be taken is progress.  I think what we have realized over the
past year is that you cannot swallow this thing in a single bite.  It has
to be an iterative process.  As long as you are moving forward and building
consensus, you are doing the right thing.

COOK Report: One other issue driving things is that IANA's funding ends
October first.  Have you offered any governmental bridge funding or are you
saying to IANA that it's on its own and if it needs money to run on, it
better look to some entity like GIP (Global internet Project)?

Magaziner: Well I believe that there have been some companies that have
committed financial resources to IANA.

COOK Report: We have heard that IBM and MCI have pledged money through
their role in GIP.

Magaziner: I thought there were more companies involved in this than just
those two?

COOK Report: On Sept. 9 they issued two press releases saying IBM and MCI
had committed and would like other companies to commit. But to the best of
my knowledge none have and, indeed, if you look at the GIP web site, you
will see that several member corporations have yet to name a representative
to the GIP board.

Magaziner: While I don't know the exact details, my understanding is that
the money is getting raised and that IANA and the new corporation will have
necessary interim funding and that when it runs out, there will have been
created an ongoing basis for funding.

COOK Report: Well other than the board and funding, the membership issue is
an unresolved concern and I suppose your view would be that this remains to
be pushed as much toward consensus as possible.

Magaziner: Yes.  And furthermore I am assuming that by mid week (September
23rd) at the latest, there will be some names of board members emerging.  I
am assuming this because we will need to have some broad public discussion
of those names before October first.

COOK Report:  Let me end by calling your attention to a critical paragraph
from the jointly signed NSI/IANA document of September 17th:

Batista and Postel: It has been our good faith effort to put forward this
final draft as the consensus solutions that best meets the challenges set
forth in the White Paper and to meet the deadline by the end of this month.
Although we believe that this document reflects the opinions of most
stakeholders, we accept the fact that some suggestions for specific changes
will be desired. Any such suggestion must, however, be received within the
next day or two and should be very specific text changes, not substantially
different concepts, because it is simply not possible to make significant
concept changes at this stage. It is now important that closure occur on
these initial basic instruments.

COOK Report: Are you prepared to accept by laws that do not have anything
further resolved beyond the status quo of September 17th?  From what you
have said it seems to be your understanding that both co signatories will
continue to work with other stakeholders to continue to build consensus and
to produce incorporation articles and bylaws that go well beyond where
draft four (which this joint NSI IANA document labels as a final draft)
leaves off.  Thus this draft should be in no way thought of as final and
that it would be helpful if NSI and IANA continued their efforts at
consensus building and refinement of the by laws and articles until the
very last moment before the Septmeber 30th deadline. Is this a fair summary
of what we have just discussed?

Magaziner: Judging by comments I have seen, I think there will need to be
at least one more draft to achieve a broad enough consensus.
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