[ncdnhc-discuss] Election results (fwd)

Thu Oct 3 02:45:12 CEST 2002

Hi!

please allow me to copy you on email I sent to the Names council a few
hours ago. Harold offered to forward it but we both agree that it's my
obligation to write you myself.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty
__________________________________________________________________________
Hello all Names Council members,

it is an honor and a quite singular distinction to have been elected by
your vote for a new period as an ICANN Director. First and foremost let me
thank you for your support and trust. Next, allow me to express my
recognition to YJ Park and Vivek Durai for their tenacity and the
value of their proposals - we must all keep in mind the calls they
make on our conscience. Then let me ask
a little bit of your patience for a view of where I perceive we are at.

It's no news that we are in the middle of a very tough and troubled period
for ICANN and in particular for the DNSO. The tensions are quite high and
there are forces, as you well know, pulling in every different direction
at many levels. We have them within our constituencies to some or other
degree; we have them between constituencies and groups of them; and we
certainly have them, and probably much stronger, outside our own realm of
the domain-name-related organization: forces that could become centrifugal
in no time at all are already at work.

In these difficult times it is imperative to look at the strategic,
long-term objectives even though for each one of us they may be clouded
behind what seem life-or-death issues which in the big picture are
tactical, local, or otherwise of a more conditional nature. The strategic
focus must remain on continuing and strengthening the construction of an
organization that puts in the hands of users, providers, thinkers, and
other responsible people and organizations the coordination of the few
central parameters of the Internet.

This is not a statement of an ambition to control, by the DNSO or any
other, but to keep enabling
the Internet community's own coordination of its resources.

There may be environments and timescales in which each one of our
individual needs, principles, business objectives, etc. will seem menial -
not banal, not unsubstantiated, not imaginary; only menial.

The stakes are very high. Whoever is attentive to other fora (ccTLDs,
RIRs, the ITU, the IETF/IAB, etc.) will realize that many organizations
are having a hard time coming together. For many of them the quoted or
underlying cause of their resistance to
strengthen their commitment to ICANN is what they perceive as a "messy"
process or situation surrounding domain names. Some of them are even
thinking of replicating some key ICANN structures, like the GAC, for their
own purposes (an unrealistic goal in my view), in order to keep their own
ways of functioning which in their perception are superior.

There seem to be also those who are actually betting on an implosion in
order to prevail in the ensuing vacuum. This is not a good choice. I do
not see much of this in the DNSO, and some outside. Again, this is not a
good choice. The alternatives are essentially that the whole matter will
be seen as the administration of one more telecommunications resource;
that the natural "messiness" of the Internet will be excluded, to the
Internet's detriment; and that each and every party that has thought to
benefit from weakening ICANN, as a whole or in their own parcel, will face
alternatives not to be liked and among which they will really have no
choice.

The coming weeks will be of tough choices. The strategic view must
dominate, without steamrollering valid concerns. There is a whole
architecture of balances among lesser evils that we have to build up. A
sense of fairness must prevail in the process in order for it to also
prevail in the reformed ICANN. Again and again we have to review our
choices so that we make compatible bottom-up consensus building with
effectiveness; transparency and accountability without sacrifice of
action; and fairness without paralysis.

All parties will be called to act in a loyal, frontal, cards-on-the-table
manner. I count on the domain-name organizations to provide an example and
commit myself to such a behavior. None of this will be possible without
effective communication among all of us - I count on that too.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
Director General de Servicios de Computo Academico
UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
Tel. (+52-55) 5622-8541, 5622-8542 Fax 5622-8540
http://www.dgsca.unam.mx
*
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, www.isoc.org
 Participa en ICANN, www.icann.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .