All, Following the last CWG meeting, your co-chairs reached out to the chairs of the CRISP & IANAPLAN teams as well as the ICG chairs in order to discuss the overarching management of the IANA IPR issue. The purpose of the discussion was to focus, not on the substance of the issue, but rather to best understand the different backgrounds, the current status and the prospective routes forward, given where we are today.
From the perspective of the co-chairs of the CWG, a number of key points emerge as follows:
1. There seemed to be an overarching sensitivity to where we ALL are in the process and the requirement to not let this IANA IPR issue derail us from a "programme management" perspective. 2. A second overarching point, directly related to 1 above, is the desire (and effectively a requirement) not to do anything which will necessitate change any of the three RFP responses such that this change would require one or more of the three RFP respondents (names, numbers, protocols) to have to go back through their respective community processes with the associated risk of delaying the transition. 3. Through the current public comment period on the ICG proposal, there is the opportunity (for the CWG) to comment on the ICG proposal, but subject to 1 & 2 above. We also sought to better understand the various tracks of work (including that of the CWG) which have seen us arrive at this point and some of the detail in that work. Key points from that include: A. That there is a form of "backstop position" in the CRISP proposal that the IPR must not reside within the IFR in future. This underlying motivation derives from two points: a. In order to facilitate a smooth potential future transition of the IANA function b. To ensure that the IPR will be used in a non-discriminatory manner. B. An underlying motivation was that the IPR should be held somehow "in trust" for future use by the relevant users of that IPR C. That there seemed to be a strongly held view that the Sidley interpretation whereby ICANN could retain the IPR AND that this would be consistent with the CRISP proposal was not accurate. The argument presented being that ICANN is in fact the IANA Functions Operator, at least in in the case of numbers. D. The IETF is willing to be the holder of the IPR in the IETF trust which is for the public benefit and the global internet society. Therefore no conflict is envisaged by having the IPR held within the IETF Trust. Finally, we considered some next steps / actions as follows: - That the same group agree to talk again in approximately one week - CRISP is likely to prepare and share some responses to the Sidley memo on IPR - We can expect to see some further detail / information on the IETF Trust - ICG & CRISP offers any knowledge, information and assistance that they can reasonably provide - A request for any guidance on timelines from the CWG In summary, it seems that we (the CWG) need to separate our prospective contribution to implementation from any comment we may wish to make now - effectively to the ICG proposal. For now, we need to focus our attention on the ICG document and the urgent requirement is to consider whether or not the ICG proposal is consistent with the responses received and, if not, what comment we wish to submit. Moreover, to be mindful that any such comment must not require any of the three RFP responses to be referred back to the relevant responding community if we are to retain the current overarching timetable. Put simply, what can usefully be done now and what can usefully be done later during the implementation phase. For your reference, we have included some relevant extracts from the CRISP response, the ICG proposal and the Sidley memo which we have used in thinking about this issue. Thank-you Jonathan & Lise