On 11/25/17 12:55 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
On 26/11/2017 06:26, Miles Fidelman wrote:
...
Regarding 2: When votes only go to organizational members, and
"Platinum Members," with a weighted vote, include Comcast and
NBCUniversal,
To be clear, the weighted voting applies only to the election of
the four Board members from the organizational members, i.e. at
most to one third of the Board. I don't see this as unduly susceptible
to vested interests.
one gets a bit leery of ISOCs ability to give unbiased
advise on things like Network Neutrality (excuse me, Common Carriage and
Anti-Trust, to use regulatory language that has more of a clearly
understood history & grounding). One might also question the influence
of groups like ICANN and ARIN, when IETF has a contractual relationship
with them and sets standards to be implemented & managed (and enforced?)
by them. It's all just a bit to rife with conflict of interest.
Exactly why the Board is set up with the checks and balances of having
three separate constituencies. Do you have any evidence that actual
conflicts have arisen without being declared? (The Board members have to
sign a conflict of interest declaration, of course.)
No. But the appearance of one is a concern. Given the current
"membership" structure (and membership), it is not at all clear who ISOC
represents or speaks for when commenting on policy matters. Certainly it
is not speaking for me, as an individual member, or as a member of the
"Internet community." When IEEE-USA, or US-ACM comments on policy, or
advocate - the entire process is very transparent, as are how members
sit on policy boards (been there, done that), and form policy
statements. Not so, when it comes to ISOC.
Now, personally, I'd be perfectly happy for ISOC to have a sole mission
of providing an organizational home for IETF, and weighing in only on
policy issues that specifically relate to IETF's role in Internet
Governance. We would still need a governance structure that ensures
proper stewardship of the IETF. There would still need to be some
governance & transparency for a process by which IETF weighs in on
policy matters - though that kind of worked pretty well when we were
going through the whole bit about changes to the ICANN contract.
Miles
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra