Dear Colleagues, Having now read carefully the proposal document, I have a significant concern to share with all Members and Participants. I feel like we are missing an important part of the puzzle. I apologize for raising this concern so late, and I hope this concern will be easily dismissed if I have missed something. Here is the scenario that raised my concern. The CWG suggests to create Contract, Co. as the contracting party for the IANA contract in the future. Consider the scenario where Contract, Co., upon instruction from the MRT after a fierce debate, contracts with someone else than Icann, following an RFP. Consider now that, due to external considerations, the root zone publisher (currently, Verisign) indicates that it does not intend accepting requests from the new IANA operator. We would be facing a deadlock, threatening the ability to maintain the root zone in a secure and stable manner. Am I missing something here ? Unless I am, I believe we would need to expand our investigations to be able to address this scenario, by : - analyzing the root zone publisher function, especially by what mechanisms it is bound to publish IANA-approved changes to to the root zone. - investigating options in our transition proposal, through which to ensure that the root zone publisher remains committed to publish changes in the root when, and only when, they are approved by the IANA Operator. Many thanks in advance for your replies regarding both the validity of this scenario as well as potential ways to address that risk. -- ***************************** Mathieu WEILL AFNIC - directeur général Tél: 01 39 30 83 06 mathieu.weill@afnic.fr ***************************** ATTENTION : L'Afnic a déménagé le 31 mars 2014 ! Notre nouvelle adresse est : Afnic - Immeuble Le Stephenson - 1, rue Stephenson - 78180 Montigny-le-Bretonneux