Andy Oram a �crit:
>
> As the ICANN board starts considering the proposals for Supporting
> Organizations today, they must return to basic principles to evaluate each
> suggestion for structure and membership. One cannot consider structure and
> membership without determining the powers of the SOs. And in this regard
> ICANN suffers from a vagueness of mission that I've never heard resolved in
> the meetings I've attended or in online discussion.
>
> ICANN bylaws include the following descriptions of SOs:
>
> * The Supporting Organizations shall serve
> as advisory bodies to the Board...
>
> (Article VI, Section 1(a))
>
> * The Supporting Organizations shall be
> delegated the primary responsibility
> for developing and recommending
> substantive policies and procedures...
>
> (Article VI, Section 1(c))
>
> Could I really be the only person in the world who sees an ambiguity -- if
> not an outright contradition -- in those statements?
No, you're not alone. This is the basis, as I see it, for the controversy
over separate incorporation or not. And ICANN may bemotivated by purely
financial resaons for its decision to lean towards the policy-making side of
this duality, because they are apparently deathly afraid of lawsuits, and
rightly see them coming from DNS decisions.
> I think the formulators of the ICANN bylaws envisaged something between
> these two poles, but closer to the view of SOs as substantial
> policy-makers. The structure of the final ICANN board (where half of the
> members will be appointed by SOs) reinforces my assessment.
It may very well be that, like myself, the originator(s) of the ICANN bylaws
saw the SOs as being ICANN, in addition to a general membership
constituency. I don't think the division of responsibility was part of the
original plan.
On the other
> hand, their December 21, 1998 call for proposals emphasizes that SOs are
> organizationally separate, so I am left with conflicting impressions.
The divison of the DNS community serves ICANN in a number of ways. It throws
responsibility for policy onto the shoulders of the DNSO. It further pushes
the DNSO to separate itself financially from ICANN. It removes much of the
DNSO's liability from ICANN. And, not least of all, it fragments the
community, and, since the community has come to be ICANN's adversary, that
is very beneficial to the ICANN Board.
> I wish the ICANN board would clarify their view, and even amend the bylaws
> to make roles clear. Then there could be more constructive discussion over
> the structure and membership of SOs.
It may not be in their interest, as they perceive, to make things clear.
> I'm also glad the dnso.org and AIP proposals gave room for end-users of
> various types.
The DNSO.org/INTA proposal admits individuals and end-users, but gives most
of the power to the other constituencies. Since their NC can act
independently from the membership, control of the NC is what will determine
policy from their DNSO.
> As many have pointed out on the IFWP list, extra weight has
> been given to trademark holders and their representatives, and you can
> guess my feelings about that. I am sure trademark holders will invest
> plenty of resources in making sure they are represented in the DNSO; I
> would rather see the structure compensate by giving extra weight to their
> potential adversaries than to reinforce the dominance of the trademark
> holders.
The DNSO.org/INTA proposal is fundamentally a trademark and big business
proposal. If ICANN accets it, or favors it, that will be a clear sign of the
the Board's intentions, and will precipitate a re-thinking by the community
of how to proceed. I suggest that it will create a situation of war between
ICANN and the community, and it would seem that ICANN is already preparing
for this by having hired a PR firm, and by making unannounced deals with the
USG. But we will have to see what comes out of Singapore.
> But the preceding paragraphs assume ICANN treats the SOs as advisory. If
> the SOs are primary policy makers, they must be broader and should
> definitively weaken the role of tchnical experts. For such an organization
> the ORSC proposal is more suited than the others. The simple, flat "one
> SLD, one vote" structure is democratic, although I wish there were a way to
> represent people and organizations that don't have an SLD.
The one SLD-one vote model is a good one for various reasons, primarily
because it reduces the power of big business and their trademark lawyers to
dominate the DNSO, albeit at the expense of the non-domain-name-holding
users. It's anyone's guess what the effect of this trade-off would
eventually be, and we probably won't have a chance to see, because it's very
dubtful the model will be accepted.
