John and all,
John, very interesting post. Much of It I agree with entirely. The
only
concern here is that how do you know you have a consensus on
anything without a VOTE to measure that consensus? To me, this is
really the crux of the problem of NOT having a PSO/ASO/DNSO, or
what have you, and is in stark conflict with the requirements with
the White paper.
John C Klensin wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I've had the "opportunity", over the last few days, to review
> all of the PSO-related correspondence of the last several
> months. Seeing it as a whole has been illuminating. For
> example, the community has moved from an apparent desire to
> have as lightweight a structure as possible to wanting a
> moderately heavyweight, separately-incorporated
> organization. More interestingly, many of the arguments
> that are now being used to justify the latter were used
> several months ago to justify the former. Some things
> that are clear is that there are some very complex problems
> as we try to admit other organizations while maintaining a
> balance of interests and that we don't have consensus on
> the details and aren't moving toward consensus very
> quickly. For example, it appears certain that IETF is not
> going to be very good at deciding what other organizations
> should be in specific categories (nor is it reasonable to
> expect that it would be).
>
> I think it may be time to consider a radical approach and see if
> we can go back to underlying principles and thereby change the
> problem to one on which there may be hope of reaching consensus.
> I make no claim that this is a perfect solution. I think it is
> pretty clear at this stage that no such solution exists and that
> the most we can reasonably expect is to find some position that
> creates only mild and general unhappiness.
>
> This departs fairly significantly from the assumptions of the
> summer and fall, but one of the things I consider important
> about what has happened with the DNSO is that ICANN no longer
> feels obligated to follow those assumptions blindly (I consider
> that a good thing, as otherwise real responses to input would be
> nearly impossible). We are blocked; we need to do something
> else, and the "something else" shouldn't be "abandon the field
> and leave ourselves to the tender mercies of some collection of
> less-relevant bodies who can prepare a proposal".
>
> Principle 1: While we, and others, can find lots of things for
> it to do (many of them dangerous), the PSO ultimately serves one
> purpose, which is selecting some members of the ICANN Board.
> And the ultimate purpose of those board seats is not really to
> define a separate set of constituencies, but to be sure that
> there is adequate protocol engineering and internet operations
> knowledge on the board to head off attempts to accidentally make
> politically-appealing but technically-impossible decisions
> (declaring PI to be 3 and repealing the speed of light come to
> mind as possibilities to be avoided).
>
> Principle 2: We don't believe in voting, kings, etc., around
> here. Our principal means of arriving at conclusions is
> persuasion based on logic, technical merit, and running code
> and using those things to drive to consensus.
>
> Principle 3: Whatever mechanisms ICANN uses to get technical
> advice should be non-excludable (e.g., so the Board can't meet
> without any technical/engineering input) and non-exclusionary
> (other legitimate Internet engineering and standards development
> should have rational and balanced opportunities for input.
>
> Radical suggestion:
>
> Lose the PSO entirely. We don't need one, and ICANN doesn't
> need one, as long as the principles above are satisfied. Having
> one --whether as a separate body or as "part of" ICANN-- mostly
> provides a focus and opportunity for a group that might easily
> come to be dominated by people who _like_ the politics and going
> to meetings (independent of the fact that they are supposed to
> be representing the technical/protocol development interests).
> >From there, it is only a few brief evolutionary steps to a group
> that might reasonably decide that it has the authority and
> responsibility to review or approve standards efforts themselves
> or to arbitrate among standards developers on technical matters.
> We don't need such a group and, IMO, neither does anyone else.
> The marketplace has proven to be pretty good at making decisions
> among conflicting standards. When and if issues arise that really
> do need to be resolved independent of the marketplace, let's
> give the organizations involved the incentives to work things
> out and force them to do so (as we have done in the past) rather
> than creating a referee who may be short on clues and/or "skin
> in the game".
>
> Lose the voting "PSO" members of the ICANN board as well. If we
> believe in our own principles or in general recognition of our
> understanding of the Internet and related issues, we don't need
> them. If we can't, given appropriate representation, persuade
> ICANN of the correctness of our positions, a few votes probably
> won't make any difference. And, if a few votes would often make
> a difference on critical issues, I think our internal experience
> suggests that ICANN won't be long for the world: they will
> either manage to function at a level of concensus at which vote-
> counting almost never makes a difference, or they will
> self-destruct.
>
> And, if the worst fears of some members of our community come
> true and ICANN will inevitably follow the paths of evil, then a
> few votes won't make make any difference either.
>
> Instead, create some ex-officio, non-voting, "protocol/
> technical/ standards developer memberships on the ICANN board.
> Set the number initially to two or three, and let IETF fill at
> least two of them. Despite the amount of heat the issue has
> generated on this list, I don't see it as being especially
> important whether the NOMCOM or the IAB appoints them. As an
> IAB member, I favor the NOMCOM; I gather that several NOMCOM
> members and former chairs have had the opposite reaction.
>
> Give the ICANN Board the authority (which it probably has today)
> to add additional of these ex-officio members as they find
> appropriate by identifying and qualifying other "protocol"
> organizations as they think appropriate. The decision --and
> whatever application process they choose to support it-- should be
> theirs and not ours: they are "paid" to do the politics and, as
> long as we don't have to worry about vote-counting, the
> constraint on them involves the tradeoff between the advice/
> representation they want and how large they want their board meetings
> to be.
>
> Also encourage the board to create ad hoc specialist committees
> to advise on particular technical issues as needed. Note that
> they are already doing that --to good effect-- in at least the
> membership, governmental, and root server areas and that the
> model for these groups involves leadership from a Board member
> or two plus carefully-selected and qualified members of the
> community. Our representatives would presumably assume
> significant roles in those committee processes.
>
> That is it: no PSO, no dollar support requirements, no voting,
> no conflicts in which the IETF needs to be embroiled about
> membership classes and who is important enough,... And
> protection from technical errors and stupidity to the extent
> that our representatives can explain and persuade. I've got a
> lot of confidence in us in that regard.
>
> john
Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Number: 972-447-1894
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208
