RE: Berlin ASO meeting minutes
- Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 16:15:11 +0200
Dear all,
ETSI is ready to go with a facilator: John Meredith.
So you can keep in touch with him at the following
Wish John a sucessfull mediation.
Jean-Michel B�car
becar@localhost
http://www.etsi.org
E.T.S.I. FAS Systems Project Manager
Tel: +(33) (0)4 92 94 43 15
Fax: +(33) (0)4 92 38 52 15
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mirjam Kuehne [
]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 20:04
> Subject: Berlin ASO meeting minutes
>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> Please find below the minutes of the open ASO meeting held in Berlin,
> Germany last week.
>
> Mirjam Kuehne
> RIPE NCC
>
>
>
> Minutes of open ASO meeting 25. May 1999 in Berlin
> **************************************************
>
> Daniel Karrenberg summarises the current state of the ASO discussion:
> The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) are working on a proposal.
> In the meantime a proposal has been submitted to ICANN by CIX,
> EuroISPA and eCOM-LAC. Recently a number of open ASO meetings have
> been held:
> - at 27. January 1999 in Amsterdam in conjunction with the
> RIPE Meeting
> - at 02. March 1999 in Singapore in conjunction with the ICANN meeting
> - at 17. March 1999 in Minneapolis in conjunction with the IETF
> - at 12. April 1999 in Atlanta in conjunction with the ARIN
> members meeting
>
> Mark McFadden from CIX mentions the idea of using a facilitator for
> the process, this had been discussed at the RIPE Meeting in Vienna.
>
> Keith Mitchell confirms that, thinks its a good idea, however, no
> individual has been identified yet. He summarises the function
> description of such a facilitator:
> - the person should be reasonably independent
> - 50% of the time of one individual is needed
>
> Daniel adds that this person would devote time to drive the
> process, to organise meetings, to draft documents etc.
>
> Bridget Cosgrave from ETSI offers a staff member for this function.
>
> Rob Blokzijl stresses that the process is and will be open to anyone,
> not just the membership of the RIRs, this is the way the RIRs operate
> currently.
>
> Rob Hall points out that there is a document out there (the proposal
> CIX and others submitted), why produce a new one.
>
> Daniel explains that going into detailed documents from the start is
> not a good idea in a process that needs buy-in from many
> constituencies, writing legal documents should not be rushed, first
> agreement on a set of principles is needed. He further suggests to
> then write a document that will describe how the ASO will work
> de-facto. Only after this has been agreed, detailed legal documents
> should be written. The de-facto operations document should
> describe at
> least:
> - how substantial policies are developed and passed to ICANN
> - how this process is managed (for instance by an address council)
> - how ICANN board nominations are done
>
> Rob H. thinks we should move forward, because ICANN exists and the
> concept of an ASO is there to be filled.
>
> Keith stresses that there are much less open/contentious issues in the
> address arena, there is no reason to rush.
>
> Esther Dyson says that ICANN was hoping to get a ASO proposal from the
> entire community for the ICANN meeting in August. A proposal that is
> on the table then will be on the agenda.
>
> Bridget asks what the crux actually is in the discussion among the two
> groups/communities.
>
> Rob H. explains that the RIRs think that only RIRs should be on the
> ASO, ISP Associations think there are other constituencies that should
> be part of it, RIRs should only operate/implement the policies.
>
> Rob B. clarifies that the registry processes and policy making are
> open, no-one has to be a member of whatever organisation.
>
> Keith points out that there are various possibilities to elect ICANN
> board members :
> - they could be purely appointees from RIR boards
> - or they could be elected from the RIR membership
> - or they could be elected from regional open forum participants
> - or some combination of the above
>
> Daniel is not confident in going into such details at this stage;
> these details should be sorted out on a regional level.
>
> In the group there is apparently some misunderstanding regarding the
> actual functions of the ASO and address council. Daniel describes the
> current structure in Europe:
> - RIPE is open forum that makes recommendations and decisions
> about policies
> - the RIPE NCC is a membership organisation; the members
> decide about the
> activities and budget of the RIPE NCC
> - very close relationship between RIPE and the RIPE NCC
>
> These constituencies want to be represented. RIPE NCC members and RIPE
> participants are worried that they would have to attend different
> meetings on different levels to protect their interests.
>
> Daniel also clarifies that the members of the RIPE NCC, almost all of
> them ISPs, tell the RIPE NCC how to spend their money, but there is a
> much wider forum who is involved in the policy making (RIPE)
>
> Bridget asks what the problem is with allowing people that do not want
> to be represented by RIPE etc. to be represented by some other
> organisation on the ASO.
>
> It could not be clarified who these other organisations would be.
>
> John Klensin describes some of the issues related with IP
> address space.
> There is currently nothing broken in the address allocation process.
> There is nothing one could vote on wrt. address allocation policy,
> it basically follows laws of physics (e.g. routing, IP
> address scarcity).
>
> The suggestion is made to close the discussion here and to start
> working on a proposal together with the facilitator.
>
> Rob H. repeats that not only the existing 3 RIRs should be on the ASO.
>
> Daniel stresses again that we should not take steps too quickly,
> we must get the principles right first before we worry about
> the details.
>
> John mentions that most likely there will be more than 3 RIRs, and the
> existing RIRs support that, they are open to this process.
>
> Rob H. also doesn't like the idea that people are forced to go through
> the RIRs.
>
> At this point Esther asks if people in the group think that there is a
> difference between the American situation and the European and if so,
> this should also get on the table.
>
> A few people in the group apparently think that there is a difference,
> it is felt that ARINs processes are not sufficiently open.
>
> It is mentioned that ARIN was going to change this towards open
> policy meetings and in general more open and transparent processes;
> this had been decided at ARINs last member meeting.
>
> Barbara Dooley thinks this has only been proposed, it has not been
> decided yet.
>
> John tries to find out again what is the problem actually is people
> are trying to fix. If it is the ARIN problem, the discussions
> regarding the ASO are probably not the right place to do this.
>
> Rob H. thinks that policies should be made on a global level, not
> regionally, all experts should come together in one place.
>
> John is not sure if the policies necessarily need or should be the
> same in all regions. They are sufficiently different and there might
> be reasons to develop different policies, because there are different
> circumstances in the regions.
>
> Barbara stresses again that ARIN is not open enough.
>
> Bridget feels that people are trying to importing the ARIN problem to
> the ICANN level.
>
> A gentleman from FR Telekom thinks that RIPE should be
> formalised more,
> it needs to be a legal organisation in order to have enough power.
>
> Daniel replies that this question has come up regularly inside RIPE,
> and so far the participants seem to be confident with the current
> situation.
>
> Mark says that in other regions it is not working like that; the goal
> is to define a global ASO/ICANN with global representation, maybe the
> European solution does not work everywhere.
>
> Daniel responds that he is not suggesting to use the same solutions
> in North America, it should be left to each region to define their
> processes, and there are movements to open up the processes in
> other regions.
> We should not create a global structure to fix a regional problem.
>
> Mark states that also another problem that at first appeared to be an
> American problem later turned out to be a global problem (the
> creation of
> new gTLDs), and the RIPE TLD-WG realised that.
>
> Keith disagrees. He says, speaking for a ccTLD registry, this was
> never seen as a global problem.
>
> John thinks there is one hypothetical difference between different
> regions: the number of very small ISPs related to the total number of
> ISPs is very high in North America, therefor one can for instance not
> implement the same allocation policies as the RIPE NCC. If this
> situation would appear in Europe the RIPE NCC's policies might have
> to be adapted. A single international policy would create problems.
>
> Daniel explains that this is how policy development was handled over
> the last years: making sure the polices are coordinated as much as
> possible among all regions and defining where the differences are.
> A framework has to be set to allow regions to define their own
> procedures, for instance wrt. the election of ICANN board members,
> this should not be defined on a global level, but should be left to
> every region to find the right process.
>
> Daniel stresses again what the question for (at least the RIPE)
> regional constituency is: If there is a global level to it, do I need
> to be represented on that as well. If the answer is 'Yes', people will
> have a problem with it, because they will have to make sure they are
> represented on all levels in order to protect their interests.
>
> If someone comes and says that he or she does not feel represented,
> Daniel would like to ask how one can make that person feel more
> represented. To mention the specific issue with the EuroISPA, the
> problem is that the RIPE NCC membership overlaps with EuroISPA's
> membership, and the RIPE NCC's members are saying that they are happy
> to be represented by the RIR process (the RIPE NCC and RIPE
> in this case)
> when it comes to address space issues.
>
> Keith stresses that all meetings where these issues are discussed are
> open.
>
> Rob H. thinks that only 'techies' go to these meetings, not the CEOs
> of the organisation and they might have different opinions or
> concerns.
>
> Keith believes that this distinction is meaningless.
>
> Daniel gives an example how the RIPE NCC process work: at one of the
> previous RIPE NCC Annual General Meeting some members proposed that
> the RIPE NCC should also become a lobbying organisation. However,
> consensus was reached that the RIPE NCC should not be doing this, this
> should be left to the trade associations. Addressing issues should be
> dealt with in a neutral and impartial environment, it should not be
> confused by issues where not all members necessarily agree upon.
>
> Rob H. thinks that CENTER is funded, staffed etc. by the NCC.
>
> Daniel clarifies that this is not the case:
> - the RIPE TLD-WG was created to discuss general TLD issues
> - they came to the conclusion that there is some work that needs to be
> done by RIPE in an open forum, some work should be done by
> the ccTLDs
> directly
> - ccTLDs decided to establish a separate group to work on these items
> - they then asked the RIPE NCC to help facilitating this effort
> - the RIPE NCC provided office space and administrative support
> - financially the group is independent (the funding is
> provided by ccTLDs)
> and the project will move out of the RIPE NCC offices shortly
> - the constituencies are different, that is the reason why it was
> appropriate to form a separate group
>
> Rob H. was asked what the actual problems wrt. address space are that
> need to be addressed urgently and what his problems are to participate
> in the regional processes. As an answer he asks the RIRs why they are
> so afraid of having a more open process.
>
> Rob B.: We are open, we cannot be more open than we are!
>
> Keith thinks that the discussion is trying to bang a
> triangular problem
> into a circular solution. Various people are not here. It is
> difficult to
> discuss their issues. The RIPE NCC and RIPE has been working with ARIN
> to make their process more open and hopes their members have
> been, too.
> Isn't this a way forward?
>
> Mark asks, why not recognise that there are other
> possibilities than the
> European model. One approach to move forward is to find a facilitator
> to find convergence between different points of view. Another
> approach is to use a facilitator to start from scratch and to document
> the status quo as Daniel suggested.
>
> Daniel answers that this is not what he meant. He repeats the proposed
> process: agree on principles and then concentrate on a de-facto
> document; don't worry about legal language right now. The ASO should
> have a regional structure. It needs to be further defined what this
> exactly means: which details need to be discussed on a global level,
> which details can be left to the regions?
>
> John says that he is personally very reluctant to see a ASO that is
> only comprised of RIRs. But because of the technical issues
> related to the
> address allocation, the RIRs should have a strong majority.
>
> He also has another concern and that is the direction and the scope of
> these constituencies and SOs in ICANN. Is his organisation required to
> be part of all these groups to protect its interests? This is not what
> he wants!
>
> Rob B. would be horrified if the ICANN structure would lead to the
> fact that many people would not be able to attend the RIPE Meetings
> anymore on a regular basis.
>
> Mark says that in his organisation there are people that fear that
> they cannot influence the address policies
>
> David Randy Conrad explains that also historically the RIRs didn't set
> policy in a vacuum, IANA would also listen to other sources,
> e.g. the IETF. Decisions were made based on technical
> considerations, not
> political ones. He would be very worried if this were going to
> change. There might be other 'technical advisory councils' to advise
> ICANN. The IETF might not necessarily be the appropriate forum in the
> future.
>
> Barbara has not yet heard clearly what the objection would be to allow
> regions to define their own mechanisms to participate in the ASO
> outside the existing RIR structure.
>
> Keith thinks the following steps have to be done to move forward:
> facilitation has to be used to extract principles and to define where
> the parties differ. In addition to that all individual
> regions have to go and
> solve their individual problems.
>
> A person from eCOM-LAC reports that his organisation is currently
> working together with the academic community in Latin America in order
> to form a LatiNIC. He also mentions that he is not happy with the
> ARIN services. He believes that commercial organisations (ISPs?) must
> have their own constituency in the ICANN/ASO. In the end customers
> of ISPs are paying for the next generation of IP.
>
> Nii Quaynor from Ghana reports that the organisations/ISPs in Africa
> seem to be satisfied with the services provided by the RIPE NCC. He is
> also not aware of anyone in the other part of Africa that is served by
> ARIN that has complained about services provided by ARIN, also they
> seem to be happy with the status quo. However, Africa is working
> towards its own RIR in order to have more influence. He mentions that
> they get a lot of support from the existing RIRs.
>
> A gentleman from Japan emphasises that it is very difficult to
> effectively participate in many meetings, because of travel expenses
> and the time spent; it will certainly be difficult to attend even more
> meetings. He admits that his organisation is not totally happy with
> the current APNIC services, but still wants to be represented by the
> RIRs on the ASO.
>
> John says that ARIN is as anxious to 'get rid of' Africa and Latin
> America as those are 'to get out'. These matters will be handled
> differently in each region. We should not create mechanisms to solve
> problems that might never occur.
>
> Daniel explains that an AfriNIC is expected to be formed and that
> the RIPE NCC supports these efforts.
>
> David asks if the RIPE NCC would force someone in the region to
> go to AfriNIC for services and not to the RIPE NCC anymore.
>
> Daniel replies that the RIPE NCC would strongly encourage that
> organisation and that the NCC would also try to help the AfriNIC to
> provide such services that the ISPs in the region would want
> to receive
> services directly from them.
>
> Keith thinks that this is typically something that should be discussed
> on a global level.
>
> Keith summarises the discussion: it has been agreed that there should
> be some regional structure, there is however no agreement if this
> should necessarily be exclusively. There is agreement on the idea to
> get a facilitator to work on the further process and to move forward.
> ETSIs offer is noted. Keith takes an action to go back to the RIRs
> boards to discuss this, it needs to be agreed by all RIRs.
>
> Because the RIPE/RIPE NCC structure is a working mechanism, someone
> suggests a possible way forward: an assignment with a clear deadline
> to the RIRs to submit a proposal. This may then only be on probation,
> the process will then have to be reviewed in two years time for
> instance, because there is the concern that not all stake
> holders agree
> with this structure. However, the RIR structure is in place and
> working right now, therefor the RIRs should be allowed to start.
>
> Mark notes that this would then not be based on consensus, and that
> ICANN is looking for consensus.
>
> Esther explains that ICANN is not recognising groups but bylaws.
> She also does not think that the process needs to be rush at
> this point.
>
> Izumi from APIA says that his organisation has no clear point of
> view at this moment. One problem is that the interest of the ISPs in
> the Asian region is not as high as it should be, because of the
> economic situation, they basically hope that someone will
> take care of it.
>
> Esther stresses that the model should be flexible enough to change,
> but it should not purely be a placeholder.
>
> Barbara seconds Keith' proposal to move forward.
>
> Keith adds that the proposal needs to be ready for the ICANN meeting
> in August; there will be additional open ASO meetings at INET in June
> and at the IETF in July.
>
> Esther confirms that the deadline for submission of a proposal is end
> of July, beginning of August.
>
> Daniel believes that a de-facto document should be ready at that
> point. It will be however too soon for details such as bylaws and
> articles.
> The following issues need to be addressed in the de-facto document:
> 1. how is policy developed
> 2. how is the process managed
> 3. how are ICANN board nominations done
> 4. what will be defined at the ASO level, what at the regional level
>
> Keith and Daniel agreed to update Kim Hubbard from ARIN and
> Paul Wilson from the APNIC about the discussion and discuss
> the facilitator
> idea further among the RIR boards.
>
>
>
>
>
