Dear Andrew Sullivan,

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 6:38 PM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs@anvilwalrusden.com> wrote:

Note: ccs trimmed.

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 11:56:16AM +0530, Sivasubramanian M wrote:
>
> What if the Transition goes through but causes the world to give up on
> ICANN ?

Do you have some reason to suppose that will happen? But anyway, that
is _always_ a possibility. That's what a network of networks is like.

I did not want to elaborate, and did not want to outline a scenario which would have the unintended consequences of being emulated. But you yourself have acknowledged such a possibility, I could only add that it is not something that you could be dismissive about.

> I have nowhere talked about tests, nor about lengthening the transition
> phase by a phase for testing, but about moving towards such an elevated
> Accountability framework where even tests would be unnecessary.

So, you wish now to inject a completely different option even than
that which Heritage has suggested?

I have neither studied nor followed any rationale that the Heritage Foundation might have outlined to reach their conclusion about the timing of the transition. I have borrowed one word, "soft" from the Spoken testimony of Brett Schaefer whom I do NOT know, and extracted the relevant passage from his written testimony to quote in my original message on this thread. My rationale is my own, it is a different option. The answer to your question is Yes.

> The promise is now in full view of the whole world, and the transition
> process is underway, so, why do we talk in terms of the promise being
> broken?

I am talking about the alternative future in which the USG decides not
to permit the transition, in the teeth of the consensus for making it happen.

I was concerned about it on a different plane. The Transition proposal, viewed as a proposal from the ICANN Community to the US Government, might look satisfactory to the US Government in most respects. But viewed from a global perspective, Transition could also be seen as becoming an exercise whereby the US Government conveys to the whole world that ICANN Governance is now global. In this sense, once adopted by the US Government, the transition proposal is no longer a proposal from the ICANN Community to the US Government, but notionally becomes a blueprint document from the US Government to the whole world on the transition of oversight of Critical Internet Resources, to convey to the world, "We created ICANN, We continue to host the geographical space for ICANN, we placed it under California jurisdiction based on a certain rationale, but with the deeper intentions of ensuring that the coordination of Internet Names and Numbers is happening in global public interest with the participation of the global multistakeholder community. Post Transition, your trust in the management of DNS would increase, without concerns arising out of the perception that we are controlling the resources" Some aspects of the transition proposal falls short of being a clear message to the Global stakeholders. I felt that the US Government ought to see the Transition proposal as its own document addressed to the World and pay attention from this perspective.

> And, are you saying that the Internet Community will NOT find IANA
> valuable and useful?! Ever? Just because ICANN is to be asked to have a few
> more hours of conversation (so to speak) on its Accountability framework??

I think that the continued use of IANA is done on a cost-benefit
basis, and the longer this goes on the higher the cost gets. There
will be a point at which people will say that this is all stupid and
find another way to solve their problems. I think we are perilously
close to that point.

The cost is a few more million dollars, but the benefits (stakes) are trillions of dollars, if money is the only the concern, and it is not.

> haphazardously reinvented ICANN. Such a symbolic or ceremonial transition

The point of this transition is not ceremony. It's to get a wheel
that does no useful work out of our operations. Period.

I don't even know what a ceremonial transition would be, never mind
why I'd want one.

That would demonstrate and reaffirm the commitment to Transition, set in motion the Transition, while allowing room to get the finer details right.

> This, again is not the only soft solution, but an off-the-cuff example of

I suggest that, instead of pursuing distracting (and frankly more than
a little insulting) off-the-cuff proposals that wave away the hard
work of the various operational communities and that solve no actual
problem anyone has identified, we spend our cycles working to
implement the consensus proposal.

I used the phrase "off-the-cuff" to imply that it would take expert deliberations to generate soft options, and tried to illustrate the existence of such a soft option. And "off the cuff" implied that the example was prone to be flawed, and not one that was to taken literally. I am posting my views as an individual in this list with participants who are open and receptive. It is allowed, I think.

Why is it seen as "a little insulting"? If there is anything insulting on this page, it is your remark that this is "distracting". Even if my comments are unexpected and not (momentarily) in tune with that of the Community I belong to, I mean well.

Thank you.

Sivasubramanian M

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs@anvilwalrusden.com

Sivasubramanian M