Re: [Ianaplan] [[e-mail]: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] Fwd: [CCWG-ACCT] Ominous update on the IANA transition]

[John Curran <[e-mail]>]

On May 3, 2015, at 4:43 PM, Bernard Aboba <[e-mail]> wrote:
> ...
> So in summary, even taking ICANN's legal concerns at face value, there were more transparent and open ways for those concerns to have been expressed and (potentially) clarified, ways that ICANN has shown itself quite capable of pursuing in other circumstances. 

Agreed - if a request for changes to the supplemental agreement were made publicly
of ICANN, then there is certainly a reasonable expectation of an equally public response.   

However, I’m not certain it is a fair expectation that in the midst of admittedly private 
discussions between IETF/IAOC and ICANN, ICANN should have unilaterally and 
publicly sent a letter of inquiry to NTIA (in fact, I can easily imagine circumstances 
where that act would be deemed rather anti-social...)

The entire community has known for more than a decade that ICANN has been
operating under two distinct agreements with respect to IANA registry operations, 
and the current and very active IANA stewardship transition planning efforts are 
all about finally straightening this mess out.   The IETF is quite reasonably trying 
to make progress via its proposed supplemental agreement changes, whereas 
ICANN has equally reasonable concerns that the planning for the IANA stewardship 
transition is still underway and we haven’t yet provided the required IANA stewardship
transition plan to NTIA, let alone received any indication back about proceeding to
implementation.

We’re going to have some interesting discussions in the coming months – discussions 
which are necessary in the process of coming to alignment on various IANA edge issues 
across the affected communities.   These will result in some entertaining reading from
time to time, but I suspect that everyone can keep a modicum of patience and faith nearby 
as necessary, with due consideration of long-term importance of the task before us to 
the global Internet community.

/John

Disclaimer:  my views alone; discard or use as desired.