Roberto Gaetano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> responding to
>Jay Fenello who wrote:
>Let me point out the couple of points where I don't share your POV.
>You wrote:
> <snip>
>> Things really got interesting the next day at the open
>> ICANN Board meeting. What started out as a presentation
>> of the CENTR compromise proposal, quickly devolved into
>> an attempt to accept the BMW draft as the basis for the
>> DNSO.
>
>Jay, what is, unfortunately, commonly addressed as "the CENTR proposal" is
>in fact a common document, agreed by all participants in the previous day's
>DNSO meeting, and is in fact the "Singapore Draft".
Which most Internet users cannot afford to have participated in
and so the document is only the document of a very small and
privileged set of people.
>The importance of this document has not to be underestimated: for the first
>time (to the best of my memory), delegates coming from different DNS
>religions and with different business affiliations and/or interests agreed
>on a rather wide spectrum of points as a compromise solution.
This gives the sense that these are delegates of the Internet
community. They are *not*. The Internet community is being
disenfranchised by the whole process of the ICANN which is
in itself an unauthoritized activity of the U.S. government
acting outside of any legitimate channels.
The Internet, however, is a global entity and the activities of
the small set of people who can afford to globe trot around the
world to participate in trying to grab what belongs to
the public and claim they have the right to make decisions for
the Internet community is far from *important*.
Rather it is a continuation of illegitimate efforts to usurp
power.
>Like for every compromise solution, nobody was 100% satisfied, but I had the
>impression that the sense of achievement was great among all of us at the
>end of the DNSO day.
Guess whenever folks trying to seize what belongs to others can
agree they have a sense of achievement.
>Unfortunately, the food fight started again during the ICANN Open Meeting,
>when (few) supporters of the BMW and Paris Drafts returned to praise the
>virtues of their respective original documents vs. the common document, but
>that's life.
To the contrary it seems that the whole process is rotten from
beginning to end and at least some folks notice this.
>> This became clear upon comments made by ICANN Board
>> member Hans Kraaijenbrink, who upon further questions from
>> Fay Howard of CENTR, revealed his affiliation to BMW
>> supporters.
>People that were not there could get the wrong impression that Hans
>expressed support to the BMW Draft, which is not what he said.
>He said that ETNO, a company in which Board he is, expressed support to the
>BMW Draft, but he didn't made up his mind.
To the contrary, it is clear that Hans is making decisions on
something that he has a conflict of interest regarding and
that that is the crux of what is wrong with the model of
a "self-regulatory" industry body running the central points
of control of the Internet. The whole conception is building
in conflicts of interest and so the problem is shown in its
essence.
It is like having an auto dealer be the regulatory agent for
the automobile manufactures. He can only make decisions in
his own self interest.
As Elaine Kamarck from the Kennedy School of Government explained
at the Berkman Center meeting on January 23 in Cambridge, this
is why one has government making decisions on issues involving
situations where these kinds of self interested parties can cause
such problems.
Government is supposed to make sure that those involved don't have
a self interest.
That is why there are procedures in place when government appoints
people to deal with matters where peoples economic lives are at
stake.
But with ICANN all those lessons have been thrown to the wind.
The other problem is that the DNS and other Internet functions
that ICANN is grabbing are the functions needed to scale the
Internet. These functions must be under the oversight and
consideration of people who understand the technology and the
computer science that keeps them all functioning and can solve
the problems as they develop.
This has all been thrown to the wind in the ICANN model.
>As both elements were known (Hans is in the Board of ETNO, and ETNO
>supperted the BMW Draft), I fail to see the relevance of the fact.
To know that there is a conflict of interest doesn't remove it.
This is like saying once the world knew that where the Olympic
games would be held was being determined by "gifts" and bribes,
that that was ok.
No to the contrary. Once once knows that there is a problem then
one needs to deal with it, rather than say its acceptable.
>> By the end of the day, few knew where the board was
>> going, and we left the fate of the DNSO in their hands
>> to be decided in their closed board meeting scheduled for
>> the next day.
>
>> Much to my surprise, the board voted to adopt a DNSO
>> very much like the CENTR proposal, *with* a non-commercial
>> domain name constituency. IMHO, this was a major victory
>> that revealed that this board could make difficult decisions,
>> and that it could be influenced by public opinion and
>> scrutiny.
>
To the contrary. The fact that the Board holds closed board
meetings shows that this is a rotten and corrupt situation.
That there decisions will be welcomed by some very small faction
of people who even know what is happening and yet that their
decisions will affect the whole Internet community of millions
of people is a very serious travesty.
>I was not surprised at all.
>This comes to the fact I outlined before: the achievement of us all,
>participants to the DNSO process, in coming to a statement of principle
>shared by all, was a fact of an extraordinary relevance, that could not fail
>to catch the attention of the Board.
To the contrary - the great majority of people are excluded from
the whole process and the Board is happy to continue that situation.
>Roberto
Ronda
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6
