Minutes of the SC-cc on Thursday, August 27th
participants:
Mark McFadden (CIX)
Roberto Gaetano (ETSI)
Leni Mayo (ISOC-AU)
Mikki Barry (DNRC)
Izumi Aizu (APIA)
Barbara Dooley (CIX)
Javier Sola (EuroInternet)
Jay Fenello (ORSC)
Chris Ambler (ORSC)
Ken Stubbs (CORE)
Marty Burack (ISOC)
Patrick Greenwell (ISP/C)
Jim Dixon (EuroISPA)
Michae Schneider (EuroISPA)
Siegfried Langenbach (EuroInternet)
Dan Steinberg (DNRC)
Charles Smith (ISP/C)
Anne-Kathrin Orth

joined later:
Jonathan Zittrain (BCfI&S)

apologies:
Tamar Frankel (BU)

An agenda was set up, though not all points could be addressed.

1) Mark McFadden gave a short overview of the things said at the IAB-plenary in the context of the IETF Wednesday night.

Tamar Frankel gave a short review of the IFWP-process. She said that the White Paper was in many issues too broad and that the second step of the IFWP was specifically defining the iBoard's powers, narrowing them down. She said the process was now close to but not quite finished. She spoke of two possible models:

a) a self-perpetual organisation that would elect its Board from within and decide all constitutional adjustments itself; this type of organisation would be difficult to control if it ever got out of control.

b) a membership-organisation which she claimed more flexible and where all personal elections and constitutional changes would be decided by the membership.

She asked the attendees to withhold all judgement on the third iteration of the IANA draft until a final version was produced.

The IAB then declared that they were using the IANA draft as a basis and that their expectations are that the current IANA would continue to be the technical basis, that the IAB would act as the protocol supporting organisation and that the IETF nomination process would be used to elect the council.

Most of the participants had not read the IANA proposal. Steff Richards therefore said that any further discussions were rather unappropriate. He also said something of an IFWP draft, supposedly meaning the Berkman Center's compilation and comparison of the current consensus points and documents.

The SC therefore decided to officially clarify the following: The IFWP does not endorse any existing draft by-law proposal, neither IANA's nor NSi's, and it does not have a proposal of its own.

6. The main issue was the question of the Berkman Center's role in the process and future meeting. Roberto reported that Tamar had said she thought the questions posed to her after the last conference call had been answered.

he process would start when the SC directly contacted the Berkman Center. There was confusion whether this was still necessary as the official "reply" of Harvard read "we accept" and it was interpreted that they were aware of the risk of failure (and possible loss of good reputation) that was involved.

CIX stated that it was only after the official reply to the SC that the concerns had arisen as there had been some very negative feedback from sources they did not want to reveal. There was apparently no longer - if ever had been - wide support for the proposed format.

To clear up the confusion, it was decided to appoint someone to constantly stay in touch with the Berkman Center and forward any information on the evolution of the process and the organisation. Dan Steinberg was appointed to do this.

More generally, it was stressed again that the SC only provides a platform for consensus and does not participate in policy procedures. As closure is, however, necessary, the SC now needs to let go of the process and hand it over to others of trust.

As the Berkman Center had been contacted, email confirmation was received that the situation had NOT changed since the official announcement to the SC. They were forwarded the access informations of the call and all decided that they should - if possible - participate in the future conference calls to avoid the constant speculations.

One of the bigger questions apparently not clearly answered in the announcement was that of the venue and whether the Berkman Center was providing such, possibly even hosting the open ratification meeting; if not, a venue would have to be found as soon as possible.

CIX gave a statement to its official position. It does not approve and accept the third draft proposal of by-laws by IANA, only as a working draft. However, they do not see any necessity for a face to face ratification meeting as electronic means would suffice. As for that ratification, they obviously could not approve to date of something that doesn't exist yet.

A proposal was made that there could be a combination of a face to face meeting and electronic input, working on the draft until there is _enough_ consensus.

Jonathan Zittrain then joined in the call, restating as in the email that the Berkman Center's position has not changed. They have been in contact with IANA for some time and have to date not received any "violent" or strong disagreement, at least from NSi and IANA, both of which are by most of the stakeholders considered necessary to have any final decision fly. As well, both consider the other strong enough keep a final proposal "grounded" if it were excluded.

IANA's current position is not to promise anything, for, if their own draft finds a broad enough consensus, they would not attend the compromise meeting. They will not be making any committments until early next week when they have received the comments to the draft, but until then still act as consultant and supporter for the organisation of the compromise meeting.

The question was posed of which key players would be invited. Jonathan Zittrain said that the list has not been finished. The process of finding possible representatives had not been introspection but to talk to different parties, asking whom they would suggest, still ensuring diverse and broad interests to be represented. The meeting would be rather small, presumably with about 20 participants, and open to feedback through the web.

There was generally a feeling that this would be slightly too small, that a number of approximately 35 participants would be preferable.

Dan, as the liason, will up-date the SC on the status of the list. The final decision of also providing the venue for the ratification meeting will also be reported back through him.

It was decided that of course, SC members could make personal recommendations to the Berkman Center as to who should be on the list, but that the SC as a whole would refrain from any such step.

There is enough substantial possibility that the meeting will take place, otherwise the Berkman Center would not be investing so much energy into its organisation. The success however will depend upon the committment of the individual participants.

Jonathan Zittrain agreed that the meeting could be announced publicly. It was however not decided who would do this or to which lists. The date of the compromise meeting has to date been set from Friday evening to Sunday evening. However, it could not be decided when the ratification would be, as the concern was expressed that many organisations would need some time to take internal decisions. On the other hand, it was said that the pressure of a deadline was necessary to force the participants to compromise; there is a need for closure, no other choice to the format and procedure. Three different possibilities were mentioned:

a) holding it directly the day after.

b) allowing one day (Monday, September 14th) for internal discussions within organisations and as a possible extension day if the documents weren't ready by Sunday night.

c) allowing three days in between for the internal decision processes of at least some more larger organisations.

Also, electronic voting could be allowed until the end of that week.

Possibly, Tamar (and the Berkman Center) could be asked to prepare as much of the document at discussion, i.e. a document merging the consensus found so far, beforehand so that only minimal issues - all those not yet addressed or not yet decided - would be left for the compromise meeting to sort out. Only this smaller document would be given to the larger organisations, making it at least less for them (their Boards) to vote on. Another possibility may be to put up both a consensus document and draft articles for ratification.

The next conference call is scheduled to take place tomorrow, Friday, August 28th with the agenda points 2-6 to be discussed then. The Berkman Center will be trying to join again.

Details will be sent out by Jay Fenello.

Anne-Kathrin Orth