All -
As promised, here are my comments on the DNSO application. There
has been a lot of misunderstanding and misstatements about the
content of this draft, and I hope that these clarifications will be
helpful.
Please note that these are my personal comments, and are not
necessarily representative of the opinions of anyone else.
A few general points:
1) The form of the document was changed back to a generalized
"application to ICANN" format, as was the case in Barcelona.
Many sections were simplified, and there are a number of places
where details are left to be worked out -- in particular the
complex problem of international representation, and the complex
language concerning committees was excised. This is not a
prejudice against these areas -- it was just felt that these
details are less controversial, and that they could safely be
left to later elaboration, or just left unspecified to be
determined at need by the Names Council (in computer parlance,
they could be run-time decisions, instead of compile-time
decisions).
2) In light of comments received from many sources the decision
model was changed significantly. The DNSO, in this new model, is
to be considered as a *source of expert and informed opinion*.
Sometimes that opinion is in the form of fully-fleshed out policy
proposals that originate from within the DNSO and may take a long
time to develop; sometimes it is in the form of a response to a
specific policy question from ICANN that must be answered in a
short time. This change is very fundamental, and has many subtle
implications -- in particular in points 3, 4, and 6, below.
3) Previous decision models involve a binary choice -- either
pass a policy recommendation to ICANN, or don't. This binary
choice was felt to be incompatible with the notion of returning
expert opinion in a timely manner, and a different mechanism was
adopted -- the "dissenting opinion" mechanism.
It turns out that this mechanism is very general and very
powerful, and subsumes many other forms of review or veto, so it
is worth spending a few paragraphs describing it.
ICANN is required by its bylaws to consider all policies in terms
of their overall effect on the good of the Internet. Therefore,
wile ICANN may by default adopt the recommendations of a SO, it
still must review those policies, and must consider their effects.
Therefore, the level of support for a policy is an important bit
of information that ICANN must use in this evaluation.
Therefore, the recommendations that the DNSO passes to ICANN will
be required to contain information concerning the level of
support for a policy, and any significant dissenting opinions.
The role of the Names Council in this model is to assemble the
recommendations and dissents, and conduct a vote that essentially
tags the recommendations with a "level of support" label.
4) This mechanism automatically builds what might be called a
"non-blocking pre-review" into the system -- any policy not
favored by the registries (for example) will be submitted to ICANN
with a dissenting opinion from the registries, with an indication
for the strength of that dissent. However, it is a *non-blocking*
pre-review, in that the policy still gets submitted to ICANN for
consideration. Being "Constituency Neutral" is an important
characteristic of this decision process -- *all* constituencies
have the same power of review.
5) The matter of separate incorporation was left unspecified.
There was a great deal of legal talent involved in drafting this
document; I think it is fair to say that they view incorporation
as a very minor implementation detail. The basic stance of the
document, therefore, is that if ICANN holds firm on its position
of separate organizations with contracts, then incorporation can
be done trivially; but if the DNSO becomes part of ICANN, then
this document will serve just as well.
6) One of the glaring differences between this version and
previous versions is the removal of explicit memberships for
individual persons. Membership criteria are now the business of
the constituencies. Furthermore, it was argued that ICANN itself
seems pretty committed to an individual membership category, and
that therefore a special individual membership category in the
DNSO was redundant.
If the DNSO is part of ICANN, the "at large" membership of ICANN
will be part of the DNSO. If not, then presumably an "at large"
constituency can be built through the constituency creation
process that is required to be developed.
Since there will probably be considerable interest in this
issue, I will post a longer discussion of the issues, hopefully
this weekend.
7) Most of the actual drafting work on the document was done by
David Maher, Joe Alhadeff, and Jon Englund. The structure and
overall layout of the document is derived from David's first
draft application, which was presented at Barcelona. Realizing
that an application would be required whether bylaws were
supplied or not, David drafted a revised version of the
application form, incorporating various elements from previous
Barcelona/Monterrey drafts. Joe Alhadeff did a rough draft of
what he thought were the salient points from the Washington
meeting. There were several telecons; David, Joe, and Jon were
conscripted into generating a merge of these two sources, plus
input from the people on the various telecons. This process
iterated a couple of times.
There were a lot of participants in the telecons and in the
impromptu email that went back and forth -- lists of addresses on
the emails kept changing, so it is a little hard to know
ultimately all who were involved. I know the following people
were all involved at some point or another (forgive me for any
misspellings): David Maher, Jon Englund, Joe Alahdeff, Theresa
Swinehart, Michael Schneider, Amadeu Abril i Abril, Fay Howard,
Mike Heltzer, Marilyn Cade, Sarah Deutsch, Ken Stubbs, Barb
Dooley, Keith Gymer, Roger Cochetti, Kilnam Chon, John Wood, Kent
Crispin, Olivier Muron, Bret Fausette, Andrew Kraft, and probably
a dozen more whose names are not coming to mind.
Kent
PS Other committments have kept me from spending as much time on
this as I would have liked, and I have not proofread my comments
carefully. But hopefully the information will be useful.
Comments all begin with "[COMMENT" in the text below...
================================================================
FINAL
APPLICATION TO BECOME THE DOMAIN NAME SUPPORT ORGANIZATION, pursuant to Art.
I, Section 3(b) of the Bylaws of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (the "Corporation")
[COMMENT: The basic form of the document has been changed back
to an "application form", instead of Bylaws. A great deal of
detail has been removed, in the process.]
INTRODUCTION
[DELETED -- the Introduction is just boilerplate]
DISCUSSION
I. MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA
A. MEMBERSHIP IN THE DNSO:
The DNSO membership shall consist of constituencies, as described
below. Each constituency shall self-organize and determine its own
criteria for membership.
[COMMENT: As noted, the constituencies set their own membership
criteria. The internal organization of constituencies is
studiously ignored. However, there are some requirements that
are implied -- for example, constituencies must be able to
nominate candidates for the Names Council in an open and fair
manner. Another important requirement is that the constituencies
be able to produce intelligent and meaningful comments on policy
proposals.]
Such criteria shall be publicly available.
Each constituency shall meet at least once a year, and all the
constituencies combined shall meet as a general assembly at least
once a year.
B. MEMBERSHIP IN THE CONSTITUENCIES:
The constituencies described herein are an initial set of
constituencies. The DNSO and the Names Council will develop fair and
open procedures for the creation, deletion, and merger of
constituencies; and adjustment of the representation of
constituencies on the Names Council.
[COMMENT: there has been some discussion for mechanisms for doing
this, but the issues are fairly complex. Several points:
- The process of changing constituencies must have a fair amount
of inertia, because constituencies have votes on the Names
Council (NC), and we want to avoid vote manipulation through
rapid changes in the constituencies.
- On the other hand, the old constituencies, and the NC, must
not be able to block the creation of new constituencies at whim.
- The inevitable result of any realistic process will be the
creation of many more constituencies, and a correspondingly
obese NC. This issue was discussed, and the conclusion was that
a restructuring of the NC would probably be necessary at some
point, but that such a restructuring would be something that
could safely be left to a future time.]
In terms of creating new
constituencies, there has been some interest expressed that a
category be created for additional Internet technology and content
providers, such as the Internet access software and portal segments
of industry.
The constituencies (listed alphabetically) are:
1. Commercial and business: entities with Internet interests
engaged in commerce or business, including, but not limited to,
organizations of commercial and business entities.
2. ISP and connectivity providers: IP network operators and
service providers, i.e., entities operating name servers for
clients and offering Internet connectivity to third parties.
3. Non-commercial registrants : Non-commercial groups, bodies
and associations, including, but not limited to, the following:
o Associations and groups of users of the Internet;
o Governmental (central, regional and local) users;
o Hospitals, clinics and other health facilities;
o Museums, Libraries and other custodians of the cultural heritage;
o Non-Governmental public sector and public services;
o Universities, Research Institutes and Schools.
4. Registrars: entities that provide a service to Internet users
of registering second level domain names in top level domains
(TLDs) (or registering third level domain names in the case of
TLDs that have established categories of second level domains).
5. Registries: entities authorized by the Corporation to publish
authoritative TLD zones in one or more generic or country-code
TLD zones.
6. Trademark and anti-counterfeiting interests: entities
including, but not limited to trademark owners and groups of
owners, who are interested is the protection of trademarks or the
effort to stop trademark counterfeiting and infringement.
[COMMENT: The "non-commercial" constituency has been added, and
the "At-Large" constituency has been removed.]
An entity may be a member in more than one constituency if it meets
the criteria for each constituency for which it applies and pays the
applicable dues or membership fees for each constituency.
[COMMENT: There is an important requirement missing here, in my
view: entities that are members of the DNSO must delegate some
individual to serve as their representative to the
DNSO/Constituencies, and that delegation should be discussed. In
my view it should be a requirement that no individual person can
represent more than one member of the DNSO.]
C. THE NAMES COUNCIL
There shall be a Names Council initially consisting of 18 members,
elected from time to time by the members of the DNSO, following the
procedures set forth below. Each constituency shall each have the
right to elect the same number of members of the Names Council. If
at some later date another constituency or constituencies are added,
the number of members of the Names Council shall be adjusted so that
each constituency shall continue to have the right to elect the same
number of members.
Within four weeks after acceptance by the Corporation of this
application, the Names Council shall form itself initially by means
of a meeting of representatives of all entities that have subscribed
to the application in the form in which it is accepted by the
Corporation. The meeting shall select an Initial Names Council that
shall have only the power to establish procedures for the formation
of the constituencies, the assessment of fees for the start-up
process and such further administrative steps as are necessary to
form the DNSO. The Initial Names Council shall not have any power to
make recommendations to the Corporation or to nominate directors of
the Corporation.
[COMMENT: This deals with the standard bootstrap problem for
organizations. If separate incorporation is required, the
Initial Names Council would probably serve in the role of
incorporators, as well.]
The initial list of constituencies and number of members of the Names
Council is set forth below:
1. Commercial and business - 3
2. ISP and connectivity providers - 3
3. Non-commercial - 3
4. Registrars - 3
5. Registries - 3
6. Trademark and anti-counterfeiting interests - 3
In order to ensure broad international representation on the Names
Council, at least one citizen of a country located in each of the
geographic regions listed below shall serve on the Names Council at
all times. As used herein, each of the following shall be a
"Geographic Region": Europe; Asia/Australia/Pacific; Latin
America/Caribbean Islands; Africa; North America. The specific
countries included in each Geographic Region shall be determined by
the Names Council, and this Section shall be reviewed by the Names
Council from time to time (but at least every three years) to
determine whether any change is appropriate, taking account of the
evolution of the Internet.
[COMMENT: The document punts on the very difficult problem of
exact mechanics for achieving international representation. This
language is essentially the same as the language in the ICANN
bylaws.
Previous versions described an elaborate and intricate mechanism
for achieving fair international representation. That language
was removed in the interests of simplicity -- it was so hard to
understand that its inclusion was an impediment to agreement.
Even some of the Monterrey and Barcelona participants were
proposing alternate language...]
The Names Council shall meet regularly on
a schedule determined by its members, but not less than 4 times per
year. Unless otherwise provided (see Section II), a majority vote of
the members attending a Names Council meeting at which a quorum is
present shall be sufficient for the conduct of its business.
[COMMENT: It should be noted that policy votes in general have
stronger requirements. It was noted that the NC could vote on
all kinds of things, including setting time for coffee breaks,
and some of them are not of consequence. Hence policy decision
processes are described in a separate section, "METHODS FOR
DEVELOPING SUBSTANTIVE INTERNET POLICIES AND SELECTING BOARD
NOMINEES" ]
Meetings may be held in person, via videoconference or
teleconference, at the discretion of the Names Council. The Names
Council shall post minutes of its meeting to the DNSO web site as
soon a practicable, after the meeting has concluded.
Robert's Rules of Order (Revised), or whatever other rules shall be
agreed to by the Names Council, shall govern the conduct of Names
Council meetings on all matters not otherwise specified by the Bylaws
or the Constitution, if any, that may be adopted by the Names
Council.
The Names Council may from time to time appoint research or drafting
committees to review matters, draft proposals and provide expert
recommendations to the Names Council. Such committees shall be
composed of at least one representative from each constituency.
[COMMENT: The reasoning for the simplification is similar to the
case for international representation -- committee structure and
mechanics are just not that exciting, and do not really need
specification.]
D. APPLICATIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP IN CONSTITUENCIES 1-6
Applications for membership in the constituencies 1-6 shall be
submitted to the relevant constituency which shall accept or reject
the application according to its own criteria.
[COMMENT: Missing is an appeal procedure for membership
conflicts. Presumably the Fair Hearing process described below
will be used.]
E. ELECTION OF THE NAMES COUNCIL
Upon completion of the work of the Initial Names Council, but not
less than six weeks after acceptance by the Corporation of this
application, the membership will form itself according to the
structure established by this application and elect members of the
Names Council in accordance with the procedures set forth below.
[COMMENT: Note that the constituencies nominate candidates for NC
positions, but it is the MEMBERSHIP that elects.]
Members of each constituency shall nominate individuals to represent
that constituency on the Names Council. Nominations within each
constituency may be made by any member of the constituency, provided,
however, that each member of a constituency may make no more than one
nomination for a Names Council member representing that constituency.
An entity that is a member of more than one constituency may make one
nomination for each constituency of which it is a member. However,
no individual or entity may hold more than one Names Council 'seat'.
Every nominee shall be identified as representing a particular
geographical region.
Elections for Names Council members shall be held once each year for
vacant seats. The term of office for each member of the Names
Council is two years, staggered so that each year one half of the
Names Council members shall be elected.
[COMMENT: Changed from a three year term to a two year term. The
motive for this change was burnout -- membership in the NC takes
work, but it is an unpaid position. Some of the commenters with
experience in this kind of thing thought that a three year term
was just to long to bear.]
The Names Council shall determine appropriate procedures (i) to
ensure the international representation prescribed for its
membership, (ii) to select the terms of the initial members so as to
ensure staggered terms and (iii) to select a Chairman and appropriate
staffing.
[COMMENT: Point i) is a requirement from earlier -- the NC just
has to implement that requirement, basically to the satisfaction
of ICANN. Of course, ICANN has to figure out how to do this as
well...]
II. METHODS FOR DEVELOPING SUBSTANTIVE INTERNET POLICIES AND
SELECTING BOARD NOMINEES
A. Substantive Internet Policies
[COMMENT: The basic process is: 1) Someone proposes a policy; 2)
the NC designates a committee to flesh out the policy proposal; 3)
after a satisfactory proposal comes from the committee the policy
is presented to the constituencies for comment; 4) depending on
the comments the policy will either be returned to the committee,
or voted out of the NC as a recommendation for ICANN. Note that
at least a majority vote is required before the recommendation may
be passed on to ICANN. A less than majority vote will require
that the policy either be dropped, or sent back to the committee
for further work and review.
Note the following subtlety -- a NC member who basically favors a
policy may still vote against it, in order to force it back to
committee and further review in the hopes of generating a
stronger consensus.]
The Names Council is delegated the task of managing the development
of policy recommendations regarding TLDs, including the operation,
assignment and management of the domain name system and other related
subjects, and, in accordance with Article VI, Section 3(a)(ii) of the
Corporation's Bylaws, the Names Council shall make recommendations on
such subjects to the Corporation's Board.
The Names Council is intended to act primarily as an administrative
and management body. It will only undertake greater authority or
[COMMENT: Note that, contrary to misstatements on the mailing
lists, the NC does not "develop" policies, or "decide" policies.]
issue final policy recommendations when needed due to urgent
questions of Internet stability, time deadlines for recommendations
established by the Corporation (and then with as much consultation as
time permits) or after proper consultation and comment/redrafting
with the constituencies.
The Names Council shall seek input and review of its recommendations
from each of the constituencies.
[COMMENT: Note that the primary role of the NC is "managing the
development" of policies, and not "development of policies". The
development of policies is delegated to committees, and review
through the constituencies is mandatory.]
Constituencies may provide initial input to the Names Council on a
given topic. If the Names Council undertakes consideration of a
topic, or if a constituency requests consideration of a topic, the
Names Council shall designate one or more research or drafting
committees, as appropriate, and shall set a time frame for the draft.
The draft shall then be returned from the committee for review by
Names Council. The Names Council may either accept the draft for
submission back to constituencies for comment and consultation or
return the draft to the committee for further work.
[COMMENT: Note that time limits are imposed for drafting and
comments. These need not be fixed -- some policies might take a
lot more work than others -- but it was felt important that a
mechanism for time constrained policy development exist.]
After the draft
is submitted to the constituencies and the comment period for the
constituencies is over, the Names Council shall evaluate the comments
to determine whether there is the basis for a consensus
recommendation.
[COMMENT: As described in the general comments, the vote of the NC
is essentially a labelling process. The labels are "consensus"
recommendation, or "majority" recommendation. In all cases,
dissenting opinions may be attached by any constituency.
A consensus recommendation is one that is supported by the
affirmative vote of two thirds of the members of the Names Council
and is not opposed by the votes of all of the representatives of any
two constituencies. If a consensus recommendation is developed, any
constituency may file a statement of its dissenting view to accompany
the recommendation to the Board of the Corporation. If a
recommendation is supported by an affirmative vote of more than one
half but less than two-thirds of the members of the Names Council,
the Council shall submit the recommendation to the Board of the
Corporation with statements of majority and minority views. If a
recommendation is not supported by affirmative vote of at least one
half of the members of the Names Council, the Names Council will
submit the proposed recommendation back to the drafting committee for
re-drafting consistent with constituency comments.
B. Selecting Nominees to the Board of the Corporation
Each year, the Names Council shall request that each constituency
appoint one representative to serve on a nominating committee for the
nomination of candidates to serve on the Board of the Corporation.
The representatives appointed by the constituencies (or in the event
of the failure of a constituency to appoint, a substitute from that
constituency selected by the Names Council) shall nominate one
candidate from each of the geographical areas specified in Article
I.C. above.
The Names Council shall have the power to select three candidates for
the first round of nominations to the Board of the Corporation, with
terms of one, two and three years respectively, and one candidate for
a three year term each year thereafter, from among those nominated by
the nominating committee. In order for a candidate to be selected,
the candidate must have the affirmative votes of at least one-half
the members of the Names Council. The Names Council shall establish
procedures for run off voting, if necessary, to ensure that the
selected candidates each have the support of the affirmative votes of
at least one-half the members of the Names Council.
[COMMENT: The basic idea is that no candidate will be approved
who does not have the vote of at least a majority of the NC
members. A runoff election will be used to eliminate candidates
until a candidate emerges with at least such a majority.]
C. General
The DNSO, the Names Council and each of the constituencies will
establish on-line methods of meeting, conducting ballots and
developing consensus. Applicable Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) procedures and other relevant models will be examined as a
possible model.
III. OPEN AND TRANSPARENT NON-DISCRIMINATORY PROCESSES
A. General
The processes of the Names Council (and the processes of each
constituency) shall be governed by the same provisions for open and
transparent non-discriminatory processes as those of the Board of the
Corporation. A general mechanism for review of conflicts and
grievances will be developed. This mechanism shall include the
appointment, from time to time, if supported by an affirmative vote
of one third of the Names Council, of a Fair Hearing Panel. This
panel will have such powers and responsibilities for review of
conflicts and grievances as may be delegated to it by the Names
Council.
B. Minutes and Reports.
The DNSO shall publish, at least annually, a report describing its
activities and including an audited financial statement and
describing any payments made by the DNSO to Directors (including
reimbursements of expenses). Draft minutes of all DNSO meetings
shall be published as soon as practicable. The Names Council at its
next regular meeting will formally approve minutes. All minutes,
meetings, materials, and communications of the DNSO (and any
committees thereof) shall be made publicly available immediately
following approval by the Names Council.
C. DNSO Web Site.
The Names Council shall post on a public World Wide Web Site:
(a) a calendar of scheduled meetings for the upcoming year; and (b)
in advance of each DNSO meeting or policy-recommendation proceeding,
a notice of the fact and time that such meeting or proceeding will be
held and, to the extent known, an agenda for the meeting. If
reasonably practicable, the Names Council shall post notices of
special meetings of the DNSO and of the Names Council at least
fourteen days prior to the meetings. As appropriate, the Names
Council will facilitate the translation of final published documents
into various appropriate languages.
D. On-line Participation
To ensure international and diverse participation, the proceedings of
the DNSO and the Names Council, as well as all Committees of the
DNSO, shall to the fullest extent possible, be available on-line.
The Names Council shall consult with the general assembly of the
constituencies to develop a process to enable on-line comments on
drafts and discussion topics.
IV. POLICIES TO ENSURE INTERNATIONAL AND DIVERSE PARTICIPATION
Because of the composition of the Names Council, there will
automatically be international and diverse participation.
V. POLICIES FOR DISCLOSURE TO THE CORPORATION BY MEMBERS OF OR
PARTICIPANTS IN THE DNSO OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST OR OTHER FINANCIAL
INTERESTS IN MATTERS WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE DNSO.
These policies shall be the same as those for the Board of the
Corporation.
VI. METHODS FOR FUNDING THE DNSO AND PROVIDING FUNDING FOR THE
CORPORATION
The DNSO shall fund its own expenses, including the costs of DNSO and
Names Council membership and other meetings and communications. It
is presently the understanding of the drafters of this application
that the Corporation is not expecting the Supporting Organizations to
provide funding for the Corporation.
[COMMENT: If the DNSO is part of ICANN this clause may be
unnecessary. But if it is an independent organization, as ICANN
has specified, then some statement about this topic is
necessary.]
The Names Council shall draw up a budget for each calendar year,
which shall include receipts, and all expenditures for which the DNSO
is responsible. These include the administrative costs for DNSO and
other expenditures for membership meetings, conferences and hearings.
The budget shall include a provision for reasonable reserves, not to
exceed a percentage to be determined of the previous year's budget.
Members of the Names Council shall serve without compensation,
provided, however, that members of the Names Council may be reimbursed
by the DNSO for out of pocket expenses incurred in connection with
their function if the expense is objectively necessary, and if the
member seeking reimbursement can document the expense and show
plausibly that the member could not perform the member's duties as a
member of the Names Council without such reimbursement. Such
reimbursement may include the cost of travel and reasonable expenses
for attending the meetings, where the member indicates that such
reimbursement is necessary to ensure their participation.
The general assembly of the constituencies shall determine a fair
means of allocating membership dues among its membership.
================================================================
--
Kent Crispin, PAB Chair "Do good, and you'll be
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
