[NCUC-DISCUSS] Resigning from representing the Open Institute in NCUC

[Norbert Klein]

Dear Friends in the NCUC Fellowship,

My first participation was in the Santiago de Chile meeting, 24-26 
August 1999. I just happened to be in Germany for personal reasons 
around that time, and so the additional air fare from Germany to Chile 
was cheaper than if I had to pay from Cambodia to Chile. An Internet 
veteran from another country in Asia who knew about my work in Cambodia 
helped to pay the hotel costs in Chile. - I had established the first 
Internet access from Cambodia via UUCP, using expensive international 
telephone dial-up, establishing and operating for some years the ccTLD 
for the country: .kh for “Khmer”, then, organizing with international 
and Cambodian friends to define the Khmer script for Unicode. And such 
work continued after Santiago de Chile, getting the Khmer script 
accepted in Unicode, helping to get a team with competent leadership 
working on creating Cambodian language software – Open Source, including 
Linux – with applications for text, e-mail, Web etc. All this when I was 
on the staff of the Open Forum, later the Open Institute of Cambodia, 
which is also the basis for our NCUC membership.

If I remember correctly, Santiago was also one of the first meetings of 
the beginning of the Non-Commercial Users Constituency within ICANN. We 
did not use so much acronyms like “NCUC” - the full name signaled what 
we were standing for: a constituency which did not consider commercial 
values a top priority in the development of the Internet. And it was a 
stepping stone towards the UDRP...

I am happy to have been part of this history – as member, then in the 
NCUC executive committee, later sent to represent our voice in the GNSO, 
and finally for two years in the ICANN Nomination Committee.

Time is running – I am no longer in the capital city of Phnom Penh, but 
old and – actively – retired far away in the countryside. Between some 
hills, there is only a not so stable access to the Internet - “The 
Internet is for everyone?” well, not - and not only because of financial 
or technical restrictions.

With this mail I want to announce my resignation from representing the 
Open Institute of Cambodia in the Non-Commercial Users Constituency – I 
have the agreement of Open Institute leadership; there is nobody who 
will take over from me.

Thanks for all the good cooperation in the past – the struggles for 
clarity and acceptance, and the commitment to our goals, even when 
things were going into directions we did not want to identify with.

Anybody visiting Cambodia? You are welcome – let me know.

Norbert Klein
nhklein at gmx.net
Kep / Cambodia