This summary covers the DNSO GA mailing list’s (and related) discussions and news during the 6th (and the beginning of the 7th) week of 2002. GA list archives are available online at [www.dnso.org]. Please feel free to forward this summary as you believe to be appropriate.
Votes
There were no ongoing General Assembly votes during the week covered.
The names council’s vote on a possible waiver of rules of procedure was finished on February 6, with 10 votes in favor, 9 against, and one abstention. As pointed out by Louis Touton (and noted earlier by Danny Younger), this means that the waiver was not formally accepted during this vote. Also, as Touton points out, the Names Council “may not formally act through a vote conducted by e-mail alone.” [www.dnso.org], [www.dnso.org].
Topics
(i) WLS. Abel Wisman presented a first draft of a response to the revised WLS proposal. This draft contained various questions collected from various mailing lists. Independently of that, Thomas Roessler prepared another (considerably shorter) list of questions, and, finally, George Kirikos submitted no less than twenty questions. Alexander Svensson eventually created a compilation of all the different sets of questions, which was then submitted to Verisign. [www.dnso.org], [www.dnso.org], [www.dnso.org], [www.dnso.org].
Danny Younger sent a pointer to the registrars’ set of questions. [www.dnso.org]
(ii) Structure Task Force. Danny Younger commented on the structure task force’s work. He notes that version 5 of the task force’s draft was posted on January 17, that it had seen practically no comments from the DNSO. Version 6 (which was supposed to be based on comments received) is still missing. According to Danny, this is proof for the “continued failure” of the task force approach. Also, he demands that the TF should focus on restructuring the DNSO. As Danny puts it, “none of us care much about the BC’s and IPC’s opinion about the future ALM.” [www.dnso.org]
In a follow-up, Peter de Blanc points out that he disagrees (!) about the possible ability of the at-large to become a “possible financial force within ICANN.” As an example, he takes just one US dollar per member. [www.dnso.org].
Alexander Svensson replies that small membership fees are hardly practical, since sending such donations to the US directly would create banking costs which make any payment unpractical. As examples, he lists GhanaExpress and NigeriaDirect, where a transfer of $ 1 would generate a fee of $ 12. He concludes that collecting small fees directly would generate prohibitive transaction costs. [www.dnso.org]
Mike Roberts suggests that the only option which may be implemented (“an imperfect, but feasible option”) is “a self-organized initial cohort of ALSO participants who are willing to pay a membership fee by credit card.” He quotes “a sustaining individual membership” as a “general type of minimum test.” [www.dnso.org]
In a follow-up message, David P. Farrar asks for a reference about the board indicating a minimum threshold of 5,000 members for a viable at-large organization (which was also mentioned by Mike). David estimates that the “chances of getting 5,000 people to initially pay $ 25 is near zero.” He suggests a lower fee and a lower threshold. [www.dnso.org]
(iii) Transfer Task Force. Danny points to discussion notes from the task force’s latest conference call. The notes were pointed to the registrars list by Ross Rader. [www.dnso.org], [www.dnso.org].
(iv) Webcast of Accra meetings. Ben Edelman pointed out that the Berkman Center’s staff will not be present in Accra, and that ICANN itself should be contacted for webcast details. [www.dnso.org]
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