Re: [Internetgovtech] Contracts, what problems we are solving

[John Curran <[e-mail]>]

On Jul 15, 2014, at 1:53 PM, Steve Crocker <[e-mail]> wrote:

> The registries maintained by IANA on behalf of the IETF, viz the port assignments, the PEN assignments and the various protocol parameter registries are under the control of the IETF.  The operative agreements are the ones between the IETF and ICANN.  I believe these are an MoU and an SLA.  If the IETF wished to use some other organization for this service, they can do so.  (I haven’t checked recently, but I suspect there are some words in the agreement about giving notice.)  ICANN does not have any rights to the information in the registries, so the entire corpus can be served by someone else.  

While I seriously doubt such a change would be prudent from an overall Internet
stability perspective, it is probably a worthwhile thought exercise which would 
help somewhat in understanding the existing relationships between the parties.

Presume (for sake of argument) that we consider the IETF (collectively) to be 
policy authority for the technical "protocol parameter" registries, the RIRs
(collectively) the policy authority for the general-purpose portion of the 
IPv4, IPv6, and ASN spaces, and ICANN as the policy authority for the general-
purpose portion of the DNS root zone.  I say "for sake of argument" because 
everyone has their own view about such authority, origins, constraints, and 
we could probably fill several tomes with alternative theories and structures.

So, proceeding ahead with the respective authorities "as given", what exactly
would be the practical result of the changing the IANA registry operator to 
some other hypothetical party (e.g. "XYZ Corp.")

For the IETF, the "IANA" would be some new team at XYZ, running similar systems
to the existing IANA team for generating and updating various protocol parameter 
tables on IANA.ORG.  If the RIRs are the authority for the general-purpose address 
space, then the not-yet-assigned (e.g. in IPv6) and technical entries in IPv4 and
IPv6 spaces would also be maintained by the "IANA".  The in-addr.arpa and IPv6
zones would need to be generated by this new IANA team.  Requests for new ASN 
or IPv6 blocks from the RIRs would be handled by this team, based on established 
global number resource policy.

An interesting question question would be with respect to administration of global 
DNS policy; one would think this would also be done by the IANA team, but it is 
potentially too integrated with the policy development body (ICANN) to now be 
discernible as an actual distinct function. It might instead require that "IANA" 
feed its information on the specialized and technical portions of the DNS to be 
integrated into a single space and published by ICANN (i.e. we've had the policy 
authority, policy development, policy administration, and publication together 
for so long that they are effectively integrated, as opposed to the original
ICANN model where ICANN was to be simply the accountability/oversight body for 
the Internet identifier system as well as the IANA record-keeper, but as opposed
to having primary policy development responsibilities as well.

> That said, ICANN was purpose built to provide the IANA function and we consider it an integral part of our operation.  We fully expect to continue the IANA operation as a service to the community and we are committed to doing so in a manner that meets the needs and expectations of the multiple parties it serves.

I believe that it's generally recognized that ICANN does an excellent job 
providing the IANA services, and personally have every hope that it continues 
to serve in that role for a very, very long time.

An interesting exercise to consider alternatives, nonetheless...
/John

Disclaimer: My views alone.