Dear Danny, Evan, and Veni,
Thank you for these candid positions of yours. This is right. I agree 100% with ... each of you. Each of you have your own perspective and a correct solution for that perspective. This fully shows that the question is "which ALAC within which ICANN".


The past

ICANN denied @large, downgrading them from 50% BoD to a DNSO/GA dispute. This was partly my fault because I accepted to participate in the IDNO only, instead of pushing for @large and only @large. Also because I forgot to renew "atlarge.org" and was unable to get it back in order to build the distributed organization that I wanted and that ALAC is now building. Thanksfully, Esther Dyson spent some of her money to keep @large within ICANN, while we went to the WSIS.


The situation we inherited

This makes today two "user at large" structures in the Internet Governance: IGF and ALAC.
The same goes for Govs with two: UN and GAC.
The same applies with the IETF and ISO/ITU/SSDOs.
Every country but the USA has a national community trustee (ccTLD Manager with its own kind of local user relation - a real life notion US citizens do not share with us, as we do not perceive ICANN as they do).
ICANN has SO and constituencies, WSIS has enhanced cooperation and dynamic coalitions.
ICANN is based on an "Internet community" (what is it today?), and WSIS is based on five poles on an equal footing: civil society, private sector, regalian domain, international entities, and technical/normative community (each of them being still to beter anlyse and define).

ICANN wants to coordinate/delegate ccTLDs, WSIS says they are sovereign.

The Tunis (US[unanimous Congress] and rest of the world) agreement is that the Legacy Internet is managed by the USA, the emerging issues and critical Internet resources are also analyzed within the IGF and globally addressed by the enhanced cooperation (still to be defined).

None of these entities is stable or mature today because the mission of the Internet as defined by the IETF (RFC 3935) and by the WSIS (Tunis declaration) are different. If we oppose, it is not that we are opposing as to how to solve, but on what we want, due to their technical constraints.


The architectural context

To keep it short let's say that the legacy Internet is a single network of networks while the WSIS actually calls for a diversity of networks of the network of networks. In other terms,

- first the networks were Host centric: centralized architecture and governance.

- Louis Pouzin proposed the catenet concept: the network of networks, Vint Cerft made the network centric Internet: decentralized (RFC 3935) architecture and governance.

- what the WSIS consensus demands is a people centric Internet: distributed architecture that the IETF also faces through IDNs and convergence. This implies a distributed governance (intergovernance) that ICANN is to manage in using ALAC.

The options are clear and they concern technical as well as general governances:

- balkanization: users start addressing their problems by themselves. I think this is too late to prevent, but we can use this positively.

- opposition between an ICANN unilateralism and WSIS multilateralism. I fear most of the people are still there.

- understanding that the ICANN/IETF is singular where the WSIS/IGF is plural, and understand/test they are complementary, can smmothly transition, and how to make it work.


Your positions

You reflect three main different positions:

1) from an US legacy Internet point of view:

North American users' specific interests are not properly protected. gTLDs actually are various US TLDs, and ICANN the missing USNIC. This means that (a) they mostly affect and can be litigated, or speech acted upon, by US citizens having access to the Californian law (b) while non US citizens can only hope they have no problem, or their Gov places some pressure on the USG to place some pressure on ICANN.

2) from the rest of the Internet: world point of view:

The (US) Internet is the current data network of the world digital ecosystem (Tunis followed the US Congress). Together with it comes the duty to manage it for the whole world, in the way of the world. Veni is right. But, there is a major issue: the expectations are not the same, and as a result, the USA and ICANN would have everything to lose.

3) from an ALAC opportunity point of view:

ALAC is now here, but not ready yet. It is for ICANN the only and proper tool, to interface the IGF and advise the BoD as to how to steer in shallow waters where the majority would like to get rid of ICANN. It is very urgent that:
- it fully undertsands its role of local/specialized liaisons and the effective internet.
- it becomes operationnal in understanding who is who and who supports what.
- helps ICANN to adapt.


My proposition towards a possible consensus

1) reducing the technical limitations.

Because the Internet is a single global system, there is no possible win/lose situation, only win/win and lose/lose ones. There cannot be several Internets, but many diversified ways to manage its use to meet the diversity of needs.

Unfortunately, TCP/IP lacks an OSI "presentation" layer that would permit it to support all the WSIS expectations off-the-shelf. IETF has no clue about it. WSIS has not realized yet that it was missing. Therefore, this is the point to be addressed. I think it can be addressed, hopefully not in disorder. It resolution, however will deeply question ICANN's role, as there will be the need for one an ICANN or one ICANN representation per presentation: a French representaion of the Internet can be totally uncoupled from an English one. To better understand this and how it should work please refer to the last part of the ICANN ICP-3 document ( http://icann.org/ www.icann.org/icp/icp-3.htm).

2) addressing Danny, Evan, and Veni's demands.

The strategy that the WSIS implied and the strategy ICANN seems to follow could just lead to that. But this has to be better analyzed, and ICANN must better define what it wants and describe it "in WSIS terms", for the IGF to understand it, rather than in "Internet community terms", which leave the WSIS community uncertain.

(a) ICANN MUST survive. It must transition to what it actually is: the US people and industry International Internet Agency with close ties with the countries wanting it. For a while, Internet stability will still depend on the stability of the DNS ICANN root zone.

(b) National/Regional/Private ICANN will emerge. Because the Tunis consensus and the digital convergence imply it: ICANN and IETF have difficulties with languages, how could they support TV, Radio, e-Government, Social Security, RFIDs, etc. international networks. China is already parallel to ICANN. All this will result in an intergovernance where ALAC is to provide ICANN local interfaces.

(c) an enhanced cooperation MUST develop quickly, because problems are urgent, or they will be addressed in disorder and we will have an Internet no more, but rather an InterNAT. BoD Member's COI problem, Registrar's cheating, etc. are important but local. IPv6 or/and multi-level addressing, addressing plans, routing, testing, netcontrol, heterarchic naming management, access coverage, financing, bandwdith management, security, cultural and linguistic diversity support, interoperability, new developments (metadata, semantics, integrated micropayments, smart network services, etc.) are strategic issues where ALS must concert and be informed, so they can inform their local community.


The ALAC Summit

IMHO there is a real urgency to complete the "ALACv2" creation. The reason why is that there are too many needs that are technicaly unsatisfied (CIR, IDNs, diversity, and semantics) by CANN/IETF. This is the role of ALAC to liaise, report, and propose a concerted approach with their solutions that will locally emerge. This is why, if ICANN could not budget a Paris ALAC summit france@large:

- invites every ALAC participant and interested @large friend to an open summit in Paris on June 21/22, at their own expense. We will manage to find a room for their meeting.

- suggests that @large people try to organize @large micro-meetings in parallel of every Internet, IGF, and Open Source event.

- proposes its http://wikicann.org (intended to prepare for the Paris ALAC summit) to document ICANN and ALAC to our national Internet communities, in our local language and terms. I am willing to accept the three of you, Kiernen,and Nick among the initial contrbutors. So, instead of disputing, we can start working together (we have to determine a simple multiconsensus oriented gentlemen's agreement).

Our current priorities

In so doing, we should have, IMHO, at least three priorities:

- to know each other better

- not to "sell ICANN" but rather to protect our national Internet community's best interests (same as Danny for the USA), and to determine how can ICANN can best help. For example: the euro-IGF has been voted by the EU parliament. Would it be good for us that ICANN be able to participate, and how?

- to build a strategic vision (I gave mine) of ICANN that we want to support, and to get it approved by the BoD.

Comments are welcome.
jfc