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Administration Committee teleconference minutes

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12 Feb 2003 at 22:00 UTC

(Minutes written by Eric Akumiah and Abhisak Chulya)

Chaired by: Bernard Turcotte

Participants

AdCom
Peter Dengate Thrush (Asia - Pacific Region) (noted as PDT)
Bernard Turcotte (N. American region) (noted as BT)

Apologies
Yann Kwok (African Region)(noted as YK)
Oscar Robles (Latin America - Caribbean Region) (noted as OR)
Patricio Poblete (Latin America - Caribbean Region) (noted as PP)
Nigel Roberts (European Region)(noted as NR)
Ramesh Kumar Nadarajah (Asia - Pacific Region)

ccTLD GNSO Liaison
Elisabeth Porteneuve (noted as EP)

Secretariat
Abhisak Chulya (Executive Director, ccTLD Secretariat) (noted as AC)
Eric Akumiah (Deputy Executive Director, ccTLD Secretariat)

In Attendance
Chris Disspain (auDA) (noted as CD)

Agenda

  1. Rio ccTLD meeting
    • - Decision to proceed
    • - Agenda
    • - meeting with GAC
    • - IANA function
  2. Additional AdCom Representatives
    • - Ramesh from APTLD
    • - Oscar Robles from LACTLD
    • - None from CENTR yet
    • - None from NATLD yet
    • - Yann will provide the name from AFTLD
  3. GNSO Liaison
    • - Jeff Neumann from NeuLevel
  4. Regional position on Nominating Committee
  5. New Secretariat
  6. AOB

Call to Meeting

PDT called the meeting to order at 22:08h (UTC) and requested if someone else could chair the meeting because he may not stay for the duration of the meeting. EP said she could only be on the conference for half an hour and most participants agreed it would be good if the meeting lasted that long. BT agreed to chair the meeting on this basis. Before the items on the agenda were tackled, PDT asked CD to brief the meeting on progress of work on the AG and whether they were on course to meet the 14th February deadline. CD said the document was in final stage of organization and should be available by Friday, 14th February or over the weekend.

  1. Rio ccTLD meeting

    • 1.1 BT asked the meeting to make contributions from the region on whether there should be a meeting in Rio. PDT said he had not been able to stimulate any approval at all from APTLD but at the same time, there had been no disapproval, and thought it was necessary to have a ccTLD meeting in Rio. He recommended to the meeting that a ccTLD meeting be held at Rio on behalf of APTLD. EP said she recalled a message from CENTR General Manager, Marianne Wolfsgruber, reporting the point of view of CENTR that it would be a good idea to have a ccTLD meeting in Rio, irrespective of ccTLD decision with regards to ccNSO because it had always been agreed that ccTLDs meet anytime there is an ICANN meeting. BT presented NATLD point of view as in favor of a meeting in Rio. In PDT point of view LACTLD had been working with the assumption that there would be a global ccTLD meeting and that the meeting could assume the same in the absence of a representative from LACTLD in the meeting. The meeting agreed that there would be a ccTLD meeting in Rio.
    • 1.2 On the issue of the agenda for the meeting in Rio, BT was of the opinion that it could not be set out immediately but rather documents could be exchanged and a draft made for an online review over time to beef it up. He mentioned the ccNSO, and the results of the Geneva ITU workshop as items be included in the agenda and asked for any other items that the meeting thought could be added to the agenda. PDT added a review of the GAC principle and mentioned the invitation by GAC secretariat for a GAC -ccTLD meeting in Rio. PDT said AdCom needed to consider carefully how to respond to this invitation for a meeting with the GAC. He reminded the meeting that previous meetings were very short and unfruitful because of the nature of those meetings. CD said the information he received from the Australian GAC representative was that GAC intended to have a fairly serious meeting with ccTLDs. PDT asked CD to get the Australian GAC to communicate this to the GAC secretariat and put some pressure on them because the scheduled meeting time would not be enough time for any fairly serious discussion. CD agreed to contact his GAC representative and other contacts to push this issue. BT also said he would do the same from his end. AC added that there was also an issue of the format of the meeting and asked whether a workshop format was more acceptable. PDT answered in the affirmative and said the previous format in his opinion could even be done through letters and words and did not get both parties anywhere. In PDT's opinion, if GAC wanted to have a meeting in old format, then, he would recommend one or two representatives to meet GAC to do cross-reporting. PDT said the best would be a 2-hour workshop with a large number of attendees. EP added that she had been discussing with Richard Delmas from the new GAC Secretariat, suggesting extending the time slot with ccTLDs to 2 hours or even half a day. She learned the GAC Secretariat was working with 45-minute time slots and had to cope with a number of items requested by GAC members to be dealt with. The participants to the call agreed that putting pressure on their GAC representatives concerning time allocated to the meeting with ccTLDs would be very useful.
    • 1.3 AC asked about the number of days for the ccTLD meeting in Rio. PDT said it would depend on the agenda. He said review of GAC principle would take a substantial amount of time. BT added that the review of ccNSO could also take a substantial amount of time and effectively a minimum of two days of work can go into the meetings. PDT said the SO discussion would take the same format with position statements from the regional ccTLDs, the speakers forming a kind of a panel chaired by a neutral person followed by presentations from ERC and possibly some Board members and a time slot for questions and answers. BT agreed that AdCom had to come out with a structure for the meeting to allow members to ask questions and get answers.
    • 1.4 BT raise the next issue on Rio meeting as IANA function and asked whether that was a valid issue to be discussed in Rio in view of previous discussion on the issue. PDT said IANA function was relevant for discussion in view of the fact that under plan B or C, ccTLDs needed to figure out how they would run IANA functions suited to ccTLDs. He said one of the reasons why ccTLDs wanted to be part of ccNSO would be the influence it would give ccTLDs on IANA functions and therefore a look at IANA function and how it ought to be run would be very useful for the meeting.
    • 1.5 The meeting then agreed that three days would be appropriate for the ccTLD meetings in Rio. It was also agreed that Sunday 23, Monday 24, and Tuesdays 25 March 2003 would be the days for the ccTLD meetings. The issue of decently sized room for the meetings came up and AC said he was working to change the room to a theatre style room to avoid the experiences of Shanghai. BT asked about the name server training. AC said everything was on course for the name server training on the 21st and 22nd March in Spanish and said the secretariat needed a go-ahead from AdCom for the training. The approval was given for the name server training.
    • 1.6 EP said she thought the IDN issues should be added to the agenda. She said the issue with IDN was much more political and complicated. She asked who, in the opinion of AdCom, could be invited to give a good briefing on IDN at meeting and suggested that someone from engineering would most appropriate. PDT came in to say that ccTLDs had their reps in the ICANN IDN committees and wondered whether a briefing from its own resources would not be enough. He also asked whether the IDN briefing should be in the direction of policy-making or just a progress brief. EP said the briefing should be in keeping up to date with progress and problems on IDN and since the issues were more political, as a ccTLD representative on IDN, she would prefer that if she had to make a presentation, an addition presentation is made by another person. PDT said the issue of IDN briefing would be put on the draft agenda for online discussion to determine who will be invited to report and how it will be reported. AC announced to the meeting the forthcoming ccTLD IDN TF workshop at APRICOT 2003 in Taipei on 25th February. PDT said it would be good if a member of the task force reports at the ccTLD meeting in Rio. AC said he would discuss with the ccTLD IDN task force on reporting progress of work at the ccTLD meeting in Rio and report back to AdCom.

    Action Item # 1 12February2003-1

    AC to discuss with ccTLD IDN TF on IDN presentation in Rio and report back to AdCom

  2. Additional AdCom Representatives

    • 2.1 PDT said APTLD had appointed its board chairman as the second representative. BT asked about CENTR to which question CD answered that CENTR was in the process of selecting the most appropriate person and will come up soon with the second representative. NATLD said the second member would have been Jeff Neumann but he had also presented himself for the GNSO liaison position.

  3. GNSO Liaison

    • 3.1 On the issue of the GNSO liaison, PDT said Jeff Neumann was the chairman of the registries constituency and would be a serious conflict of interest if he were appointed to do the job. He also said he was talking to a couple of people in the AP region who may be willing to take up the position.

  4. Regional position on Nominating Committee

    • 4.1 AC asked a question as to whether the Nominating Committee discussion would be put under ccNSO in the main ccTLD meeting agenda. BT answered in the affirmative. PDT said ICANN would have formed the Nominating Committee and appointed members by Rio but the issue was whether ccTLDs even cared to take up the single membership position allocated to ccTLDs, when ccTLDs had roundly criticized the formation of the Nominating Committee, and in any event though one nominee of 19 was inappropriate and nearly useless. So, before doing anything there was a political process necessary to establish a consensus ccTLD position on this single seat offered. Next, the Board was going to act as agent for the ccTLDs, on the basis that the SO was not yet formed, which might result in a protest against the fact that ICANN was thinking of acting as agents of ccTLDs to appoint a member on behalf of the Board for ccTLDs. PDT added that the best approach would be for ccTLDs to approach the Board and ask them to consult with ccTLDs when they appoint members to the Nominating Committee. CD said the board would be happy to receive some consensus input from ccTLD on this issue. EP said if ccTLDs had to adopt plan A and stay with ICANN, then it must be very concerned and careful on this issue. If however, ccTLDs adopt plan B or C in the end, then it does not really matter. CD asked whether anybody knew about the time frame for the formation of the Nominating Committee and whether it would have been formed before Rio. EP answered by saying she had been following development on the Nominating Committee and delegates had already been selected from several groups and believed it would be done before Rio. PDT said the discussion on this issue could be continued online and regions take position on it.

  5. New Secretariat

    • 5.1 CD asked whether the secretariat would be adopted into the ccNSO secretariat if ccTLDs agreed to stay with ICANN. PDT answered in the affirmative and added that there were two political issues to be resolved. One of the issues was a largely European view to use the regional ccTLD secretariats, which would mature over time to become the ccNSO secretariat. Those who see the CENTR secretariat as being the only one capable of doing it, he said, oppose this view. The second issue was that ICANN would be funding most of the ccNSO activities and therefore would staff the ccNSO. Some of the responses to this issue indicated that there was a general worry that staffing would be taken out of the hands of ccTLDs. CD said he asked the question because if money would flow into the secretariat and staff made available as and when it was needed, then, they would be happy to take that role. PDT said since the decision was tied to the outcome of the reforms, the issue of new secretariat could be shelved untill the Rio meeting while AC and his team continue to run affairs as ccTLD secretariat. In response to a question from EP, it was agreed that the future of the secretariat would be further reviewed in Rio.

  6. AOB

    • 6.1 There were no other businesses. PDT announced that as a matter of protocol and in line with format, Patricio Poblete should become chairman of AdCom until end of the Rio meeting and should chair all AdCom meetings and teleconferences. BT said he would publish a draft agenda for the ccTLD meeting in Rio by Friday, 14th February 2002

    Action Item # 2 12February2003-B

    BT to publish ccTLD Rio meeting draft agenda by Friday 14 February 2003 for online discussion

The conference was adjourned at 22:45h UTC

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