[CWG-Stewardship] Contract, Co. and the root zone publisher

[Mathieu Weill]

Dear Colleagues,

Having now read carefully the proposal document, I have a significant 
concern to share with all Members and Participants. I feel like we are 
missing an important part of the puzzle.

I apologize for raising this concern so late, and I hope this concern 
will be easily dismissed if I have missed something.

Here is the scenario that raised my concern.

The CWG suggests to create Contract, Co. as the contracting party for 
the IANA contract in the future. Consider the scenario where Contract, 
Co., upon instruction from the MRT after a fierce debate, contracts with 
someone else than Icann, following an RFP.

Consider now that, due to external considerations, the root zone 
publisher (currently, Verisign) indicates that it does not intend 
accepting requests from the new IANA operator. We would be facing a 
deadlock, threatening the ability to maintain the root zone in a secure 
and stable manner.

Am I missing something here ? Unless I am, I believe we would need to 
expand our investigations to be able to address this scenario, by :
- analyzing the root zone publisher function, especially by what 
mechanisms it is bound to publish IANA-approved changes to to the root 
zone.
- investigating options in our transition proposal, through which to 
ensure that the root zone publisher remains committed to publish changes 
in the root when, and only when, they are approved by the IANA Operator.

Many thanks in advance for your replies regarding both the validity of 
this scenario as well as potential ways to address that risk.

-- 
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Mathieu WEILL
AFNIC - directeur général
Tél: 01 39 30 83 06
mathieu.weill at afnic.fr
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