At 10:03 AM 3/13/99 -0500, Dave Farber wrote:
>There are many cultures represented on the Interim Board . Many come from
>cultures that do not engage in open board meetings nor have legal
>requirements for public meetings to be open. If the purpose of openness
>is to insure visibility of the process then my suggestion goes a long way
>to PROTECTING the community with recognition of the attitudes of many of
>the Board members.
One of the cultures that does not have open decision-making meetings by the
"board" is the IETF. The IAB, the IESG and the Nomcom do their decision
work in private.
As critics of ICANN forcefully express concern that ICANN not become a
governance body, they are simultaneously -- and contradictorily -- pushing
a particular model of openness which exists almost exclusively among public
governance bodies.
We have exactly one example of a global, open Internet-related decision
body, and that is the IETF. It works quite well. Hence it is entirely
reasonable for ICANN to emulate that style of openness pretty closely,
absent solid data or arguments to the contrary.
The SO's will be entirely open, just as IETF working groups are.
The emphasis on making the ICANN board meetings entirely open is not only
distracting us from more important matters, it is a fundamentally wrong
style of operation for this sort of body.
d/
ps. And...
>When I said many cultures represented I DID NOT mean in a democratic
>fashion but in the context of an outlook on process. Europeans have a
>different perspective.
The ethnocentrism of Americans in pushing The One True Model of public
decision making is proving to be a good way of undermining U.S.
credibility. Some societies have more open requirements than the
U.S. Many have less. They all work quite well. We need to appreciate the
variety of ways of achieving the goal of openness.
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Dave Crocker Tel: +1 408 246 8253
Brandenburg Consulting Fax: +1 408 273 6464
675 Spruce Drive <http://www.brandenburg.com>
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
