Hi, On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 05:07:07PM +0100, Paul M Kane - CWG wrote:
We are designing a process for transitioning the Stewardship of IANA from NTIA - therefore we need to consider the Stewardship role. To suggest this is not to be considered now is absurd. […] (limited and defined scope) affiliated company, within the ICANN Community, responsible for Stewardship.
I don't understand how the latter follows from the former. It's true that in the absence of the NTIA's stewardship, that stewardship moved somewhere else. It does not follow from that that one needs a "company…responsible for Stewardship." It only follows that the stewardship function, to the extent it functions, needs to happen somewhere. The arguments for legal separation amount to arguments that stewardship is going to be easiest to ensure when the stewards and the thing to be stewarded are legally separated from one another. The contractual terms between the stewards and the stewarded prevent the latter from doing whatever it likes, it's true; but they equally protect the latter from untoward interference by the former, when the former might try to overreach ("Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"). In other words, stewardship does not lie in a single company, but in the relationship between two functions; and ultimately, in the wider community observing all of these interactions. I don't think anyone is suggesting we not consider stewardship. But I do think it absurd to think that the right thing to do is try to re-create an organization to fill the shoes currently occupied by NTIA. If we're going to reproduce the dissatisfying structure we have, why would we change it at all? Best regards, A -- Andrew Sullivan ajs@anvilwalrusden.com