On 4/19/07, Vittorio Bertola <vb@bertola.eu> wrote:

Thompson, Darlene ha scritto:
> What is the benefit of saying "If JJ has gone to all that effort to
> explain that the bylaws don't mean what they say"?  Such comments seem
> to me to be unnecessarily rude and inflammatory.  Is it possible to keep
> the conversations in this list to a slightly more professional level?
>
> The by-laws clearly state that orgs-of-orgs are allowed in plain English
> (see my last e-mail).  However, if I am misreading them or if there is
> some other points that we should be considering, then lets discuss it.
> But PLEASE let's discuss these in an adult manner.

I was there when that section of the ICANN Bylaws was drafted. The
original intent was to say that only organizations having individual
members would be allowed, but then, thinking at the way many groups are
organized (and especially ISOC chapters, which were the most common user
group active in Internet governance at that time), it was realized that
you would need to allow ALSes to have organizational members as well,
even if for-profit entities (e.g. sponsors or supporting companies), as
long as they weren't the ones who would actually determine the positions
of the group. This is why the "predominate" language ended up in the
Bylaws - to give some degree of flexibility for what regards actual
structures.

However, we specifically designed the system with the ALAC (not ICANN
staff) certifying ALSes, because we wanted to avoid the risk of capture
or spin by ICANN; the At Large was to be free to make ultimate case by
case determinations on whether certain organizations were predominantly
participated by individual users.

Even if I'm quite sure that, when the Bylaws were drafted, the intended
meaning was "no orgs of orgs", it is true that one could read them in a
more flexible manner, and that, in the end, it is the attitude that was
meant to count, not the form. Now we have an official opinion by the
ICANN General Counsel to confirm this, but anyway I don't think that by
opening up to organizations that regroup smaller groups of users we
would be violating the Bylaws principle that "participation by
individuals must predominate"; it all depends on whether, in the end,
the grassroots participation and interests of individuals are reflected
in the policies of the leadership.

This is an evaluation that should be done case by case by the ALAC - and
I don't think that the ALAC would need Bylaws text to reject, say, an
ISP! But for example, we already accredited entities who are involved in
ccTLD management as well, because in Africa there's often just one small
group of people doing everything related to Internet governance for
policy and practice; so that's really an evaluation that needs to be
done for each case.

It is a subjective evaluation that IMHO, if in doubt, should tend to be
liberal rather than restrictive: if people feel that this is their home,
and we don't see gross mismatch between their attitudes and those of a
class of average Internet users, nor risk of capture (which is anyway
getting smaller and smaller as the number of ALSes grows), then we
should let them in.
--
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
-------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------

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