Hi Bruce,
 

I believe it was deliberately set up as public benefit rather than a member organization - to avoid the situation where the members become limited to say gTLD registries and registrars and hence it ends up operating primarily for the benefit of the domain name registration industry.
 
Sorry, Bruce, this just isn't accurate. Under the California Corporations Code § 5310(a) a Public Benefits Corporation can chose to 1) have or 2) not have members. There are California Public Benefit Corporations with members and California Public Benefit Corporations without members. All are public benefit corporations with the same responsibility to serve the public. The differentiation in California law is not between public benefit corporations and member organisations, as may be inferred from your comment, but between PBC's and Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporations which, likewise, may or may not have members but are not imbued with the wider social purpose of a PBC. The Corporate Flexibility Act of 2011 created a new type of corporate vehicle in California, the California Benefit Corporation, which frankly is something that if we were operating in an ideal world we might want to consider. It is designed for for-profit corporations but requires Board members to consider multiple factors (commonly referred to as "people, profit and planet") in making decisions and not solely to consider the institutions provincial  best interests in decision making processes.
 
I'm not sure your view of history is completely accurate. Certainly in reading Karl Auerbach's archives ( http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog/ ), and others, one gets the impression that membership was rejected in an attempt to marginalise those who held differing perspectives from the individuals perceived to then be running things at ICANN  (One L.A. law firm in particular).  I'm not sure anyone would claim the Karl himself, or others supporting the membership option, at that time were interested in benefitting the domain name industry. Of course, I'm sure there are differing views amongst those involved in things at that time, and times have changed - just wanted to point out that things aren't as cut and dry as some may wish to present.
 
 

Any move away from a public-benefit corporation to a membership corporation 
 
 
Again, there would be no such move. We would merely change ICANN  from being a PBC without members to being a PBC with members, per California Corporations Code §5310-§5313. Absolutely no change of corporate type, merely an internal change within the statutes governing California PBC's. ICANN would  still be a Public Benefit Corporation with the same public service commitment, merely one with Members.
 
- would need to carefully consider how to ensure that the members are reflective of the broader Internet community and don't become limited to a few members
 
 
I am in complete agreement with you here. We need to be creative and inclusive in creating membership vehicles. There needs to be a place for anyone and everyone in a new membership based ICANN. Lots of politics, lots of compromises, but it can be and should be done. We're supposed to be a BOTTOM UP multi-stakeholder organization. Properly designed, nothing is more bottom up than an inclusive organisational structure where the Board answers direct to Members who themselves consist of the diverse, broad and global internet community. The other option - some sort of appellate board regulating our current Board - is just more top down in a process whose legitimacy is based upon it being bottom up.
 
 
Kind Regards,
 
Ed Morris