Sorry, Mr. Heath, but I didn't agree to continue this discussion in secret,
so I am posting this to the same recipient list as was used previously.
Don Heath wrote:
> I was sitting directly behind you in the Washington meeting and directly
> across from you in the Boston meeting. I was not in Monterrey. I have been
> involved in this process from the beginning.
You never posted to any of the lists, not even to the DNSO.org lists, where
the controversy over what Kent Crispin and Michael Heltzer were doing was
conducted. You weren't in Monterrey, where the real consensus work was
done. You may have been in Washington and Boston, but you contributed so
little that I wasn't even aware of your presence. How can you claim to have
been involved? If you don't speak, say what you think, and engage in debate
over your ideas, how can you expect people to know your opinons, or respect
them?
> I am also quite aware of
> the process and that a very disparate group of people have come together
> to produce this consensus draft.
Almost all the groups listed on the websites as supporters of the proposal
you defend are business and trademark groups. Do you call that a disparate
group of people?
> Michael, respectfully, thousands of people don't write a draft.
> Typically a few do it based on meetings of masses and from discussions
> on electronic lists, etc. For someone to use words such as " [the
> draft] was written by a very small (less than 5) group that accepted
> very little external input," is simply false and misleading and
> not constructive. This was not a quote from you but from someone
> who is trying to distort the process.
The draft submitted by the CORE leaders in the names of the business and
trademark contingents was written by a handfull of CORE people. This has
even been admitted by Crispin and Co. I monitored the DNSO.org lists
constantly, as I do the other lists involved, and there was very little
input to the draft, except for protests against it, and what little input
existed was ignored. Since the Barcelona and Monterrey consensuses were
dispensed with, where is the mass participation in its composition that you
claim?
As to misleading statements about others' drafts, you wrote:
"The group with a consistent narrow focus, the small collection of
people driven by those claiming to be part of ORSC, seems to be quite
unwilling to work with anyone but themselves."
But the ORSC didn't write the Paris draft. It's based on work that AIP did,
with later input from many sources, including numerous independent
stakeholders who originally collaborated with DNSO.org in Barcelona and
Monterrey, but who changed to the AIP proposal when they saw it was better
than that written by the CORE leaders. So saying that it's an ORSC proposal
is misleading and untrue. You may dislike the ORSC, but why denigrate the
Paris draft because of that?
> Sorry, I don't recall you ever addressing anything directly to me.
I don't recall your ever saying anything that I could address.
> I tried to play a very neutral role in the DNSO process.
Do you call coming out in support of one proposal over another, after not
having been involved except as a bystander, playing a neutral role in the
process?
> ISOC wanted only to see the widest consensus in the development of a
> proposal to ICANN.
Then why did you stand by when the CORE leaders started favoring the
trademark lawyers? Why didn't you speak up or have your representatives
speak up and tell the CORE leaders not to split the DNSO.org?
> It's a wide consensus of disparate groups.
Not according to the list of its supporters. And not according to the names
of the people who wrote it.
> It is not a unanimous
> consensus of all that could ever be. Alas, would that that could
> ever be the case.
It certainly won't ever be the case if you, as ISOC leader, come out in
favor of it, which has not only thrown opprobrium on the draft but on you
and your organization. And your melodramatic play-acting makes the
insincerity of your remarks only that much more obvious.
> Could you tell me how many people you actually directly represent?
If you can't win an argument by reason, since your opponent has out-debated
you and your arguments are shown to be illogical or insincere, try to
diminish his stature by resort to defamation and prejudice. I'm surprised
you didn't ask what my parentage is, or how much money I have.
But to answer your question: The ICIIU is not a membership organization,
therefore it has no members. If representing people means being delegated
their voice through membership, I'd have to say I represent no one but
myself, an end-user of the Internet. But if representing people means
expressing ideas that many hold in common, then I suppose I could claim to
represent many. Furthermore, the ICIIU has a website where user-friendly
ideas are expressed, and people from all over the world visit the website
and carry away a better sense of their rightful place in the Internet.
Sometimes they write me and thank me. Sometimes they provide me with
information that I can use to counter the user-unfriendly activities of the
people you support. If you'd like me to send you an accounting of the number
of people who visit the ICIIU website each month, I'll be happy to provide
it.
And now I'll ask you the same, but more forthrightly. How many people do you
represent, or will represent once it becomes known that you have attempted
to give up control of domain name allocation to big business and its
trademark lawyers? I'll wager that more will stand behind me than you, at
the last.
