[CCWG-ACCT] Attempt to summarize discussion regarding Mission and Contract

[Malcolm Hutty]

On 12/11/2015 12:55, Silver, Bradley wrote:
> Malcolm, your reliance on the relevance of public comments, and
> assertion that consensus has already been reached twice, is not
> compatible with the fact that the comments you refer to were received
> /after/ the purported consensus was reached

Each of the previous two draft reports was a CCWG proposal, and each of
them were intended as the basis of a final proposal, should the comment
received have supported the proposal. That constitutes an internal
consensus finding in its own right, prior to the public comments.

The public comments then go on to show that the internal CCWG consensus
was matched by a more broadly based public consensus.


The reason we came back to re-draft the proposal was because first our
initial Reference Model, and then the Sole Member Model both received
substantial pushback in the public comment.

There was no such substantial opposition to the Mission statement; on
the contrary, it was widely welcomed. There were some concerns from the
intellectual property community, which we have done our best to
accomodate while continuing to uphold the substance of our proposal that
was so popular. But there was nothing like the pushback we received on
the model, so there's no justification to re-open the basic question of
whether there should be an explicit prohibition on regulating content:
that question must be considered settled.

This is not the only issue on which the consensus achieved was an
acceptance and willingness to move on (at the time) rather than
universal delight with the substance. If we re-open this, we will also
have to allow those others to be revisted too. Is that really what we want?

I have numerous issues with which I am dissatisfied myself, and I think
that for some of them I could make a convincing case that our decisions
do not even match the standards we have set for ourself and claim within
the Report. But I have chosen to remain silent on these issues that have
previously been closed out, out of respect for the process. I think we
can safely assume that others have shown similar restraint.

At some point, you have to accept what you have got and move on.

But this principle must be even-handedly. If this text is now removed or
nullified, I seriously doubt the existing apparent consensus on other
matters will hold either.

-- 
            Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523
   Head of Public Affairs | Read the LINX Public Affairs blog
 London Internet Exchange | http://publicaffairs.linx.net/

                 London Internet Exchange Ltd
       Monument Place, 24 Monument Street, London EC3R 8AJ

         Company Registered in England No. 3137929
       Trinity Court, Trinity Street, Peterborough PE1 1DA