Do you understand the relationship between ISOC and IETF? This is a similar relationship between ICANN and IANA.
Sure I do, I was in Copenhagen in 1991 when it was proposed, have being one of the pioneer members since launched in 1992, and started the ISOC AR Chapter in 1995. IMHO IETF and IANA are slightly different type of animals, so ISOC (even as it changed over time) are different type of zookeepers. While IETF has been invaded with attorneys, trolls, lobbyists and IP issues (no the addresses), ICANN is full of it. The spirit and idea behind the creation of both organizations was essentially to create a protective umbrella for the activities of IETF and IANA, IANA initially was under ISOC's umbrella and Jon's direction, when DNS became a big thing and pressure mounted to take control of it (don't know how many know when Postel tried a move to get it out of the hands of the USG) and expand the name space ICANN was born, but it turned to be an organization quite different than the one envisioned in the early days, one that after ten years still keeps discussing how to define its constituency and creating all sorts of smoke screens to argue that the multistakeholder model works. Just my opinion -J