[CCWG-ACCT] [ianatransition] U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Full Hearing on 24 May 2016

[Andrew Sullivan]

Note: ccs trimmed.

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 11:56:16AM +0530, Sivasubramanian M wrote:
> 
> ​What if the Transition goes through but causes the world to give up on
> ICANN ?​

Do you have some reason to suppose that will happen?  But anyway, that
is _always_ a possibility.  That's what a network of networks is like.

> ​I have nowhere talked about tests, nor about lengthening the transition
> phase by a phase for testing, but about moving towards such an elevated
> Accountability framework where even tests would be unnecessary.​

So, you wish now to inject a completely different option even than
that which Heritage has suggested? 

> ​The promise is now in full view of the whole world, and the transition
> process is underway, so, why do we talk in terms of the promise being
> broken?

I am talking about the alternative future in which the USG decides not
to permit the transition, in the teeth of the consensus for making it happen.

> And, are you saying that the Internet Community will NOT find IANA
> valuable and useful?! Ever? Just because ICANN is to be asked to have a few
> more hours of conversation (so to speak) on its Accountability framework??

I think that the continued use of IANA is done on a cost-benefit
basis, and the longer this goes on the higher the cost gets.  There
will be a point at which people will say that this is all stupid and
find another way to solve their problems.  I think we are perilously
close to that point.

> haphazardously reinvented ICANN. Such a symbolic or ceremonial transition

The point of this transition is not ceremony.  It's to get a wheel
that does no useful work out of our operations.  Period.

I don't even know what a ceremonial transition would be, never mind
why I'd want one.

> This, again is not the only soft solution, but an off-the-cuff example of

I suggest that, instead of pursuing distracting (and frankly more than
a little insulting) off-the-cuff proposals that wave away the hard
work of the various operational communities and that solve no actual
problem anyone has identified, we spend our cycles working to
implement the consensus proposal.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com