On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 5:28 AM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs@anvilwalrusden.com> wrote:

Hi,

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 01:37:20AM +0530, Sivasubramanian M wrote:

> In many ways, a soft interim role for the US Government, or a short delay
> would actually ensure that the transition details are gracefully accepted
> by the whole world.

As some of us who testified before the Committee today pointed out,
there is no evidence for the above claim; and it might cause people to
give up on IANA and go do something else.

What if the Transition goes through but causes the world to give up on ICANN ?

Moreover, such an approach
wouldn't actually prove anything. As Steve DelBianco pointed out
repeatedly, for instance, either the tests will reveal nothing new
(because the processes are already running), or else the test is very
unlikely to happen (because the new powers are for extreme conditions
that we all hope will not happen).

Just for example, if you actually wanted to test whether the EC's
ability to overturn the budget had the effects desired, we'd have to
invent a crisis that nobody wants in order to see whether the crisis
conditions are handled correctly. It is very hard for me to see how
that would be a responsible "test" period. Either we're delaying
something to perform a "test" that actually tests nothing at all, or
else we have to introduce a needless crisis in order to see whether
the mechanism works the way we'd like.

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.

Worse, we have a consensus, and it's being implemented. If the USG
now says to the IANA operational communities that their consensus
doesn't count, there is no reason to suppose those communities are
going to wait around for the next promise to be broken, and there's no
reason to believe that the Internet community generally will continue
to find IANA valuable and useful. Both of those outcomes are bad news
for the stability of the Internet identifier systems we have; and in
my opinion they offer much greater risk than the putative benefit of a
"soft" transition.

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? 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??

There could be several possible forms of a 'soft' alternative to a quick and unconditional approval of the transition proposal. It does not have to call for a 'test' phase, it does not have to be a complete 'No' to transition, it could indeed be transition on the promised date, but a symbolic transition - to the existing ICANN, as it is, not to a haphazardously reinvented ICANN. Such a symbolic or ceremonial transition could be followed by a 'transition phase' where in NTIA would have make 'soft' interventions. Such a soft alternative path would in no way imply that the existing stability of the Internet identifier system is in anyway compromised.

This, again is not the only soft solution, but an off-the-cuff example of several possible soft alternatives to an unconditional approval of the transition proposal, which, on a different note, has arisen out of immense and impressive Community effort that truly demonstrates the mutlistakeholder commitment to ICANN.

Sivasubramanian M

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs@anvilwalrusden.com

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Sivasubramanian M