[CWG-Stewardship] RZERC Charter for CWG review
Alan Greenberg
alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca
Wed May 11 00:39:59 UTC 2016
At 10/05/2016 06:48 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>On Mon, May 09, 2016 at 05:12:58PM +0000, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
> >
> > The CWG represented only the names community, its proposal
> emerged out of the names community, and it only had authority to
> make proposals relevant to the names community. If you are talking
> about RZERC you are talking about names-related changes.
> >
>
>I think Milton is quite correct. Bluntly, if _today_ the NTIA decided
>to tell ICANN not to do something that the IETF specified under
>ICANN's IANA agreement, I am quite sure that the IETF would use the
>same 6 month notice period it would use after the transition.
I have no doubt about that, and I would support it.
But that is not the question on the table as I understand it. It is
purely about how that new function is carried out and not IF to carry
it out. It might require minimal operational changes and this is a
non-issue. Or it might require substantial software development or
have major security issues that needed to be considered.
My understanding of the overall issue is the following:
- Currently the NTIA passes judgement on pretty much every decision
that IANA makes related to the RZ and all of its operational
procedures (including those related to the non-names communities).
- The transition was required to specify how the NTIA would be
replaced post-transition. The critical day-to-day issue was of course
approval of changes to the RZ, but also operational changes and the
systems they use.
- DT-F was charged with considering this, and the outcome was that
day-to-day decision would be handled internal to the IANA group and
that substantive changes to the RZ Architecture would need to jump
through extra hoops to ensure that all aspects were considered before
making changes. Additionally, significant operational changes (with
an eye to major systems and/or automation changes) would similarly
need to have such external review. In my mind, presuming the other
operational communities did not invent their own replacement of the
NTIA authorization function, this group would address issues related
to them as well.
- The Group now called the RZERC (regardless of whether that is an
appropriate name or not) was designated as the wise people to perform
or oversee the review, and the ICANN Board was identified as the
entity to give the "official" blessing. That blessing is effectively
a rubber stamp unless there is reason to suspect the RZERC has not
properly done its job.
If this group and the ICANN Board are not responsible for overseeing
operation changes related to the non-names registries, there are
several options that I can think of. Perhaps there are more.
1. IANA (PTI in this incarnation) is left to its own devices and they
can take whatever operational actions they want with no external
approval. They could of course consult the RZERC if they chose, but
are under no obligation to do so. Whether this is acceptable to the
NTIA, I have no idea.
2. Each of the other communities could set up their own consultative
group and authorizer (which could be the group itself). IANA would
involve RZERC if the issue is names related, the new group(s) if the
issue relates to other registries, or both (or all three) if applicable.
3. The other communities could use the RZERC (to not re-invent the
wise-people-group) and it would forward its recommendation to the
numbers/parameters-designated approver.
I have no particular stake in which path is chosen, although I have a
long enough history in systems design and operation that my
preference is not option 1. We are talking about things that can
break the Internet if not done properly, and I no matter how good the
folks in IANA are, I think that major changes in process or systems
should be vetted by a group that has a very strong cross-area
perspective and can give such plans an unbiased and fresh review.
2 seems overkill based on the number of times this group is likely to
be invoked and the likely overlap among the groups.
Alan
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