Andy and all, Normally Randy is kind of an ass. But in this case I must agree with his analysis. This subject and recent Stuart Lynn/louis Touton/ Joe Simms announcement is being heatedly discussed on a number of other forum venues at the moment. It's not being well received... Andy Linton wrote:

You might like a view from a senior IETF figure.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 21:33:53 -0800 From: Randy Bush Subject: Re: ICANN reformation

from: http://www.icann.org/general/lynn-reform-proposal-24feb02.htm [ and the announcement http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-24feb02.htm ]

"It is now more than three years since the creation of ICANN, and there are some real accomplishments: the introduction of a competitive registrar market, the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, the creation of seven new global Top Level Domains."

<flame>

the registrar market is not usefully competitive. the seven new tlds are a failure. the udrp is kind of a success, but it took tanks and guns to keep icann's lawyer from handing it to washington trademark lobbiests and the recording industry. and the new gtlds are failures, many are not even working and neustar had another big layoff last week.

the story i get is that the board, after much 'discussion' has let this brilliant idea float. at least the following were arguments o icann is running out of money o icann needs $20m, half, $10m, is to run the root servers o the dnso has been a failure o governments will give icann money

imiho,

o again, icann is more interested in, and totally focused on, arranging power rather than providing simple stewardship and service. icann is brilliant at rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. the problem is they have the internet on board.

o why does icann have to spend $10m to run the root servers when it never usd to cost anything? they're run voluntarily. heck, i know isps who give free circuits to them!

o icann could be run for $1-2m/yr - scale down operations and fancy meetings *completely*, meet at ripe, inet, ... - get back to simple stewardship and management - *earn* the cooperation of cctlds, registries, and they can support a *small* icann, ...

o the idea that governments will give icann money is probably flawed. the criminal mob would be more likely to do so, and would likely extract less of a price.

o explaining reality to the current icann powers that be is extremely hard. explaining it to governments, who, under this plan, would be given vast power, will be virtually impossible. clueless bureaucrats can actually *break* the internet.

o the failure of the dnso is merely the failure of one of icann's sillinesses. it is no loss, it is a demonstration of a fatal misunderstanding of reality.

o icann only needs to - coordinate allocation of address space to the RIRs - maintain the root zone file - slowly try to get MsOU with the folk icann actually serves

one computer scientist used to do this as a part time job. how much of a mountain can we make of a molehill?

o the board should immediately install a president, or whatever the position is called, who actually remembers how to serve the internet simply, with constructive cooperation, and less than $20m/yr. as no one with clue will want to do this job for a long time, it likely needs to be a pro tem appointment.

o if the president pro tem is not technical, get a cto or vp tech pro tempore. it will need an understanding of the technology to scale icann back without damaging anything.

o there is one good thing for scaling icann down now. the pressure for new gtlds has to be less, seeing the great financial boon the seven new ones have not seen.

o another is that the constituencies are tired, years of doing nothing but spending money on fancy hotels and creating massive hot air. years of the icann process may have actually filtered some clue into the players.

i suspect that only the combined voices of the isps, ietf, registries, etc. can insert some rationality into this craziness.

get icann under control, shrink it back down to something small, and SERVE the internet, stop trying to rule it.

</flame>

randy

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