[Ianaplan] Everybody, take a breather (Was: Re: CWG draft and its impact on the IETF)

[Jari Arkko <[e-mail]>]

Folks,

I think it is time to cool down the discussion a bit.
Please take a pause before deciding to comment
on individual posters, use unnecessarily polarised
words (such as seceding, utter), casting a behavioural
pattern on organisations, or painting a very black
and white picture of the road ahead.

We are trying to bring about a significant transition
in the Internet. Parts of this transition are easier,
other parts are harder. At the IETF we are lucky
to be on the easier side, but we also want best
for the whole Internet, and not just for us. While
there are significant challenges still ahead in the
names side, one observation that I would like
to make is that the effort is unprecedented in
how much it is community driven. But work
is still needed,  As Lynn pointed out, we need
to work together.

I would like to separate the discussion about the
rationale and commentary of the names proposal
a bit from the effects to the IETF. 

As for the commentary on the names proposal,
I think it is quite appropriate to make comments
and ask questions. Even hard ones. I am
absolutely certain that the names community
is happy about receiving such input and feedback.
Lets work through that.

But the other question, perhaps even more
immediate for the IETF, is whether the arrangements
have an impact on us. My own view is similar to what
Bob, Brian, and others have stated on the list. That
is, the IETF can work with existing MoUs and that it
isn’t fundamentally incompatible with internal
organisational changes on where the IANA department
actually lives inside ICANN. This is also supported
by what Avri said. However, as several posters have
noted, the names proposal is not complete yet. So 
can we work together on finding the details that
work for us?

I wanted to highlight also that the largest
part of coordination between the three IANA
communities happens indeed between the
communities. Not through IANA. Take the discussions
from a couple years back when we talked about
expanding the private address range, for instance.
There was a lot of back and forth between the IETF
and the RIRs. In the end we made a decision and
communicated it to IANA, which executed it with
the help of the IETF and RIRs doing the right thing.

Jari