[CWG-Stewardship] Documents for review by CWG - budget and separation power

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

First, to be clear, I think the text the CCWG is now working with is
probably ok.

On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 05:30:07PM +0000, Martin Boyle wrote:
> 
> It is very much an operational budget, so I see no particular reason why it would not be established by the IANA functions operator in discussion (agreement) with the operational community.

I think we need to be pretty careful in how we speak.  That says "IANA
functions" (plural) but "operational community" (singular).  I think
it highlights a tension.

There are really in effect two kinds of budget.

One is the budget for the IANA functions for the names community.  I
think this is the thing that the CWG has been interested in.  To
achieve that and to make the separation goal possible, the PTI is
created.

We've been assuming, I think, that ICANN will just transfer all IANA
functions there, and that therefore there will be a clear "IANA
budget".  I think this is the right assumption and I think ICANN would
be crazy to do otherwise.  But it is at least logically possible that
ICANN will only transfer money for the names function out of the ICANN
budget to PTI, and that the numbers and parameters functions will be
broken out of the "IANA budget" as we've been talking about it.

The other OCs don't have to care about that, because their agreements
are apparently going to remain with ICANN and not with PTI.  So the
details of the budget are not those OCs' concern, and they've said
that they prefer to rely on their MoUs.  Again, probably the right
answer but it creates a wrinkle in exactly how the budgets can be
teased apart.

> When it appears in the ICANN budget, the PTI budget really should be
  sacrosanct except for quite clear and fairly limited grounds that an
  IANA budget could be vetoed.

It has always bothered me that, at bottom, there's no real way to
ensure this.  It will always be possible for the wider ICANN community
to dispute the budget or shut it down in some way -- particularly, in
a way uncomfortable to non-names OCs.  I think the answer to that has
ever been and remains that the OCs have a provider/customer
relationship to the IFO, and if the terms have to be renegotiated then
it's like any other negotiation.  But we probably best keep that in
mind as we discuss this.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com