Esther wrote,
> NSI has promoted the notion that ICANN somehow has violated the
> White Paper by having an "initial" Board rather than an "interim"
> Board. This argument is pointless. The White Paper calls for the
> consensus entity that became ICANN to "appoint, on an interim
> basis, an initial Board of Directors (an Interim Board)" (emphasis
> in original]. This "initial" Board was to serve until it
> established "a system of electing a Board of Directors." Thus, the
> terms "initial" and "interim" were clearly synonymous in the White
> Paper.
Article V: Section 1 indeed speaks of an "Initial Board":
The initial Board of Directors of the Corporation ("Initial Board")
shall consist of [a] nine At Large members, [b] the President (when
appointed) and [c] those Directors that have been selected in
accordance with these bylaws by any Supporting Organization(s)
that exists under Section 3(a) of Article VI during the term of any of
such At Large members. The At Large members of the Initial
Board shall serve until September 30, 1999, unless by a two-thirds
(2/3) vote of all the members of the Board that term is extended...
Since only the at-large members and yourself are currently sitting,
minus the remaining Directors indicated in clause c, beginning with
the conjunction 'and,' it seems to me clear that *as yet* INCANNs
*Initial Board does not yet exist, and that it significantly clarifies
the process if this 'at large' (not to say ad-hoc) half of the Initial
Board were designated as something else, for instance, 'Interim
Board. Do you not agree that when the (conscientious) history
books are written, they will wish to make some such distinction --
for instance, to make it perfectly clear that amendments to the
bylaws (not to mention certain other statements of policy) were
made without the participation of any representatives selected by
the organizations membership?
(You may be interested to know that when I suggested this to Mike
Roberts, (3 June) he responded (which in itself is more than some
do!): "The Board will grow incrementally as the SO's add their
Directors, and as the at large elections are held. I don't see any
useful distinction between what the board does or doesn't do during
any particular stage and I doubt that history will either."
-- that is, whether there are member representatives or not is
apparently not a useful distinction. May we infer that whether he
carries the title of President of this board is also not very useful?)
In particular, when you say
> The White Paper specifically called on the "initial" Board to
> formulate the necessary consensus policies to allow competition to
> be introduced as quickly as possible.
doesnt it strike you as not merely "quick," but downright premature
for 9 appointed members to proceed to do the work of 19 elected
members? Do you not see that the problems you attribute to NSI
may be caused largely by your own Board's pre-emption of the
process? That the 'fierce resistance' you meet is simply because
you're not doing it right? That if you had not been in quite such a
hurry, you might not only have properly -- that is, on technical
grounds -- refused to accept their extension of nondisclosure
agreements to
> the experiences of the ICANN-accredited registrars now
> attempting to open up the domain-name registration business
> to competition
-- but had wide public support for the 'delay' a showdown at that
time (instead of the present backhanded attack) might have
caused?
Cheers,
kerry
"When we are asked direct questions we answer them." - E
Dyson.
