Fwd: Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] ICANN committee recommends votingrestrictions,fewerAt-Large directors

[Milton Mueller]

Though I have not yet formulated a complete opinion on all
aspects of the ALSC report, I want to challenge one of the
premises of the proposed structural division. 

I cannot accept the fiction of "developers," "providers" and "users"
being three equal parts. My main objection is to the "developer"
category. I think it is an arbitrary construct designed to empower
a very small group of technologists. This legacy group, which at most 
consists of a thousand or so people, often quite excellent on 
technical standards development, cannot be givne equal standing in policy 
issues with "users" and "providers." Users number in the hundreds of 
millions, and providers in the hundreds of thousands. Users and providers 
both have far more to gain or lose from DNS and IP address policy.

Morevoer, any careful examination of the composition of the 
so-called "developer" community finds that they are all employed
by the providers, or are providers themselves. The past two
chairs of the IAB were employed by IBM and AT&T, respectively.
Look at the membership and officials of the address registries.
They are all ISPs and telephone companies. 

And for that reason I suspect that Barbara Simons is right that the 
apparent balance is really bound to be a two-thirds to one-third split 
that will almost always outnumber the publicly accountable Board
members. And I suspect that it is not an accident.

OTOH, the idea of collapsing trademark holders into a broader
"user" category has considerable merit. That is really what trademark
holders are - a specific aspect of Internet usage, not a special category 
deserving of their own special constituency. The same goes for non-
commercial users; sometimes we too have trademarks or names
to protect, sometimes free expression or educational needs
will be paramount, it depends on the issue.