Chuck,

I like your formulation below:

"I don't think any of us want to transfer the functions outside of ICANN. We just want to make sure that we never have to."

This highlights the need to balance between building ongoing accountability mechanisms to ensure that things are functioning well versus building separability mechanisms as the core accountability foundation.

The current CWG proposal is tending a bit too much towards the second aspect in my view and does not lead to sufficient attention to the practical way the IANA functions operate.

Rummaging through the early postings on the list Archives, I found this prescient comment from Kieren:

"IANA is not a stationary function and I think it would be smart to recognize that. I am concerned that because we have a lot of policy people and process people here but not many business folk that this group may draw up wonderful new structures that just add more process rather than focus on making the IANA functions a very efficient machine with happy customers."

Seems to be a remark that resonates with several of the comments submitted in the last few days. At least we have obtained quite a strong consensus in the comments regarding the public posting of requests. A concrete outcome.

Merry Christmas to all :-)

Bertrand

On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 10:09 PM, Gomes, Chuck <cgomes@verisign.com> wrote:

That seems to be beside the point Christopher. The one incidence resulted in better accountability. I don't think any of us want to transfer the functions outside of ICANN. We just want to make sure that we never have to.

Chuck