The entire PSO as a concept does not work for me at all.
And I find the actual proposals to be exercises to clearly allocate a
significant portion of ICANN's board seats to an extremely small
electorate.
Details:
ICANN is a limited body; it has but three roles: DNS, IP addresses, and
"protocol parameters".
Protocol parameters are things like which TCP or UDP port is to be used
for particular service -- like port 80 for http. Generally there are only
a few such allocations per month. There is essentially zero technical
creativity in most of these assignments. And for standard protocols,
there is really no contention. There are cases where some technical
expertise is required, and, at least in the IETF context, these are
beginning to be handled via a reference to a "designated expert".
However, there are multiple standards bodies involved in the Internet. For
instance, nearly every packet moving on the internet bears numbers
assigned by IEEE. And much of the new work in network audio and video,
including IP telephony, uses protocols (and protocol parameters) that are
issued under the aegis of the ITU. And many companies (e.g. RealAudio)
are deploying what quickly become de-facto standards.
Thus, the role of ICANN is to come up with policies to resolve those few
(and in practice it is extremely few) conflicts which might arise between
values assigned by different standards bodies.
And, under the ICANN structure, the lead for that policy making in the
PSO.
The question is whether this slim, almost vanishingly thin, function
deserves to have three board seats on ICANN.
In addition, many proponents of the PSO are claiming a privileged voice as
the ultimate technical authorities over any matter before ICANN, even in
areas clearly within the scope of the DNSO or Address SO.
One has to ask, that if this privileged voice is to exist, why does ICANN
have a Chief Technical Officer, and why should not those who claim such
expertise simply join the DNSO or the Address SO and offer their advice
directly?
But finally, if one looks at the PSO proposals, one sees that they are
being structured so that the sole and exclusive effective membership is
for "standards" organizations, and often the language is designed to
describe and admit exactly one existing standards organization.
(Some proposals admit other membership classes, but they are truly "second
class" and are really nothing more than ineffectual and powerless window
dressing.)
Why should the PSO be composed only of standards organizations (or one
standards organization)?
To the extent that the PSO is empowered with a superior technical voice in
ICANN, everyone has a need to be part of the PSO, not just standards
bodies.
And why should protocol parameters be considered of interest only to
standards bodies. Companies developing their own protocols have an
interest to parts of that space. People doing interoperability testing
and network deployment are also interested.
It is my suggestion that ICANN simply elminate the PSO entirely from its
structure.
--karl--
