Since yesterday I could not make my comments at the Public Forum, I sent them by email to the Board, and I am publishing them here. ----- Dear Board of ICANN, as I was standing in line yesterday morning in the Public Forum, but due to prior commitments was not able to attend the "ad hoc" afternoon session to express my views, I am sending them directly to the Board, copying the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and ALAC Liaison so that at least one of them can forward my message to the Board list, and I will publish them somewhere for yesterday's audience. Before I get to my point of substance... I guess that several people already expressed their discomfort for what happened yesterday. However, please let me reiterate that the Public Forum, where the community and the Board discuss in plenary mode about the main topics of the moment, is one of the most fundamental elements of ICANN's legitimacy and accountability. Everyone knew since the beginning that at this meeting the Public Forum would have been crowded and well attended, and the decision to allot just one hour for it, then letting VIP speeches eat even more into it, is a terrible mistake. I urge the Board to make sure that there is ample time for Public Forums at every ICANN meeting - given that this situation happens often, I see a need for clear directions to staff by the Board. Now - I would like to comment as a wannabe applicant for a gTLD application which may or may not materialize, but that constitutes a good proof for the remaining flaws in an otherwise well thought-out draft RFP. Its main purpose is to save an ancient language and culture which have been existing in my part of Italy for about a thousand years, but which will disappear forever in twenty years or so, together with the elderly people that still embrace them, unless we can succeed in transitioning them to the Internet age. A small group of volunteers has been working pro bono for years to create online resources in this language - including, for example, a Wikipedia edition. The existence of a gTLD specifically devoted to that culture and language would make in our opinion a huge difference. It would boost the sense of identity and community, and provide a visible home to gather all efforts. However, this will clearly not be a business opportunity - it is imaginable that initially the gTLD would have just a few dozen registrations, which we would gladly give away for free through a non-profit vehicle. I think that what we would like to do is a deserving purpose, at least as good as yet another dot com clone, and possibly better than the abundant defensive registrations of any kind that we will see. To run a TLD with such a few registrations, there is no need for big staff and huge server farms - in fact, we are confident that we could get all the time, skills and technical resources as volunteer work and in-kind donations. However, even if we succeeded in this, we would still be facing an impossible task to raise $185'000 now and $75'000 each year just to pay ICANN fees, and we would likely score very badly against operational and financial criteria designed for multimillionaire global ventures. Yet, if you think that what we are trying to do is obsolete, amateurish or unimportant, please think again. This is the way all ccTLDs and gTLDs started prior to the ICANN era, and most of them have become pretty successful by now; actually, the only ones going for bankruptcy lie among those picked by ICANN through its carefully drafted RFP processes. This is actually the way almost every innovation happens over the Internet, still today. The Web? It wasn't invented by CERN, it was invented at CERN, by a couple of individuals, in their spare time, as a byproduct of their real job. Instant messaging? Peer to peer? Even innovations that overturned billionaire industries were invented by one or a few individuals with no money at all, or at most by small garage startups. What would happen to innovation if the IETF required $185'000 to submit a new Internet draft? I understand that there are costs attached to the establishment of a new TLD, though $185'000 per application, even in an expensive country like Italy, is enough to hire five or six people for one year for each application, and one wonders why do you need all that work; and $75'000 per year to keep a TLD in the root, where the work required in the absence of special events is literally zero, is plainly ridiculous. However, if you want to extract money from rich applicants going for remunerative global TLDs, or from big corporations with deep pockets trying to protect their brand, that's fine; but please don't make other uses impossible. There are several pricing structures that could address this issue: special prices for non-profit applicants, lower fees for TLDs that don't reach a minimum number of registrations, or panels in cooperation with appropriate organizations (say, UNESCO) to "bless" applications that have specific cultural or technological value. Several people have promised to submit practicable proposals in the next few weeks. But it is paramount that ICANN doesn't sell out the domain name space without putting in place features to address this issue. In the end, while applicants will be judged by the RFP, ICANN will be judged by the overall set of TLDs that it will add into the root. It may get 500 or more of them, but if 90% of them will be private corporate registrations, and the rest will be dot com clones with some kind of vague specialization, ICANN will have failed. But, looking also at other aspects, I am also afraid that the failure might end up being much deeper. ICANN is becoming a well managed business entity, through increased staffing and the introduction of corporate best practices. However, ICANN is not just a business entity - it is a strange beast with much more than that into it. What is optimal for a business corporation might actually make parts of the community feel not at home any more; and might make ICANN lose touch with its roots, with the nature and spirit of the Internet. If this happens, ICANN is doomed - all the governmental deals and business partnerships won't be enough to preserve its prestige and credibility. I see as one of the primary strategic roles of the Board that of ensuring that the decentralized, flat and free nature of the Internet is preserved, or at least not attacked, by the policies that ICANN adopts, and even that these policies contribute to, or at least do not stifle, the fulfillment of Millennium Development Goals and other worthy objectives in terms of development and human rights. These are not just high sounding words, they carry a meaning that must trickle down into everything ICANN does when it comes to policies. When you are tasked with a fundamental role in coordinating the Internet, there's more to life than business as usual. Please do not forget this. Thanks, -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <--------