Re: [Ianaplan] Fwd: For your Information: CWG-Stewardship Response for Chartering Organization Consideration and Approval

[Milton L Mueller <[e-mail]>]

> -----Original Message-----
> I admit that despite the respect I have for the IETF and its Trust, given that
> the Trust's fiduciary responsibilities are solely to the IETF, I argue that the
> IANA domain names and any trademarks associated with them should be
> transferred to the PTI along with the other assets necessary for doing its job.
> And if that can't happen, then remaining with ICANN seems the next best
> option to me.

This doesn't work if you want a community to be able to change its IANA functions operator. If one particular IANA functions operator holds the mark then it has a kind of lock-in that the principle of separability should not permit them to have. And asking a particular IANA functions operator to make the marks and domain "perpetually and freely available" to actual or potential competitors sets up an obvious conflict of interest that is likely to cause trouble. Besides, telling ICANN or PTI that the license cannot be exclusive means in effect that ICANN or PTI don't actually own it, so it's not clear why you would want it to be there. The IETF, on the other hand, has no such conflict of interest and does have a real and impartial interest in ensuring that the name associated with the basic registries created by its own standards are used in an appropriate way. 

I can't take seriously people who say "if we ever have to change IFO everything will be so messed up that it won't matter who controls the marks;" this is neither logically true (one can posit many scenarios in which it isn't) and it is obvious that fighting or confusion over the marks would make even that bad scenario worse. 

Again it seems like you are needlessly re-litigating the issue here. IANAPLAN and CRISP have a proposal for how to handle the marks and domain that are compatible. CWG doesn't. Let CWG propose how it wants to reconcile the incompatibility. Then you can discuss its merits.