Re: [Internetgovtech] an initial proposal wrt IANA developments

[John Curran <[e-mail]>]

On Mar 21, 2014, at 1:54 AM, Richard Barnes <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Thanks for starting the discussion on this.  It's important that we as an organization understand how the recent NTIA news affects us.  Unfortunately, I disagree pretty fundamentally with the characterization in the text below.  
> The below text seems to suppose or imply that ICANN is changing its behavior to compensate for the lack of NTIA involvement.  That's just false.  Or it should be — since NTIA has had no operational role for a long time, our multistakeholder processes are not affected by their departure.
> 
> I'm not denying that there may be changes over time in how the multistakeholder organizations work or how they relate to one another.  Only that these changes are just part of the natural evolution of the community.  They're not driven by NTIA's decision, so they don't need to be part of this discussion.
> 
> My concern with focusing on change rather than continuity is that it invites trouble.  Saying that there is a "transition" implies that there is some vacuum that needs to be filled by somebody.  That just invites other people to argue that they should get to do NTIA's supposed job (which was actually nothing).  There's no need for anyone to take on additional responsibilities
> 
> Our focus in any statement should be to reaffirm our current processes -- as we have been executing for years. Any changes are simply to strengthen those processes, and should have been done irrespective of the NTIA decision.

Richard - 

   Several of the IETF protocol parameter spaces are general-purpose (i.e. the DNS space, the 
   IP address spaces, etc.) and thus they pose "policy issues" in additional to the technical criteria
   set by the IETF.

   Presently, these particular spaces are administered in a framework which was established by 
   the Internet community and documented by two principal parties: both by the USG/DoC/NTIA
   (via ICANN's formation and the IANA Function contract), and also by the IAB/IETF (via RFC 2860).

   While NTIA's involvement has been extremely light-handed, its presence supports the proposition
   that the various policy bodies in the general-purpose Internet registry system (including ICANN 
   and the RIRs) are not operating completely without oversight, and this is very reassuring to many 
   globally given the importance of the Internet today in societal and economic development.

   So, while I agree with you that the message should be ongoing evolution and continuity,  it is also
   important for the IETF community to maintain some awareness of how its general-purpose identifier 
   spaces are being administered, since their administration is essential to the successful deployment 
   of IETF protocols globally.  Similarly, NTIA's announcement does require specific consideration by 
   this community, to the extent it leads to changes in oversight mechanisms applicable to IETF's 
   general-purpose registries.  (I am optimistic that any changes made will continue to support the 
   success of IETF protocols, but that's presuming that IAB/IETF stays engaged in the discussion...)

/John

Disclaimer: My views alone.