Re: [Ianaplan] CWG draft and its impact on the IETF

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

EL: I would state it differently: I am all for the names community to have choices, but let's agree that there are ramifications for the other communities, and those ramifications should be addressed and not swept under the rug.

MM:
Let’s address them. I think the ramifications for other communities are minimal if we look at it objectively.
Movement of all 3 functions into PTI is actually the most conservative option because those functions are together now as a single department and we are, as Russ said, simply reorganizing them into a distinct affiliate, which has several improved governance and accountability features. So let’s assume a PTI that includes names, numbers, protocols. What happens if the names community pulls out of PTI at some point in the future, while IETF is happy with PTI? What, especially, are the financial implications for IETF? It is useful to explore this scenario.
My view is that if names pulled out of PTI, nothing would happen to IETF. A smaller PTI would continue to supply numbers and protocols functions as before. Why do I believe this? Because IETF would still have an MoU with ICANN to provide the protocols-related functions, and the RIRs would still have a contract for supply of the numbers functions. If ICANN was providing those functions via PTI, why would it suddenly stop running the protocols/numbers IANA simply because the names root registry was no longer using PTI? Wouldn’t it still be obligated to provide those functions as much as it is obligated now under RFC 2860? How would that obligation change simply because the names IANA functions went somewhere else?
My understanding is that ICANN can also cancel the MoU with IETF, with 60 days’ notice. This could happen whether or not there is a PTI, whether or not the protocol functions are moved to PTI, whether or not names pulls out of PTI in the future. So I fail to see how the reorg of IANA under a PTI affiliate, or any choice of a new operator by the names community, has serious ramifications for the future supply of the protocol functions. If there are political or economic factors pushing ICANN away from its support for IETF, those exist, or not, independently of the PTI structure.
Thus, if the wariness about PTI’s role in protocol IANA functions stems from the concerns I have outlined above, that wariness needs to go away. As Andrew Sullivan famously said in his rug-lifting screed: IETF really doesn’t have autonomy required to shift the functions until and unless it is able to self-support them. That may be a hard problem for IETF, but it is not caused by the PTI structure, nor will it be solved by fiddling with the structures proposed by the names community to solve their problems.
--MM