Roberto and all,
Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> Karl Auerbach wrote:
>
> > I am certainly glad that you have finally demolished the authority of
> > the SO's.
> >
> > It's good to know that the board is going to have the ability and
> > responsibility to entirely ignore, review, reject, or completey rewrite
> > anything that the PSO, DNSO, or ASO might decide.
> >
> To the best of my knowledge, this is what happens for every Board for every
> corporation.
Very true. I have experienced this on several occasions myself in
non-profit membership based corporations.
>
> If a group of people (appointed or elected doesn't matter) has the
> responsibility to speak for a corporation, it surely has the authority to
> take decisions.
It does indeed matter if they were appointed or elected. If appointed
those Board members cannot truly speak for the membership as
the memberships representation. If the are elected, however they
can as they have that memberships mandate.
>
>
> In this respect, I thought that nobody had any doubt.
You were greatly mistaken, and obviously had not been paying attention...
>
> The matter of discussion was, in last fall, was about having the SOs as
> separately incorporated or acting as part of ICANN. The latter solution has
> been chosen, and I am very happy of that.
This was a separate subject thread last fall. And yes it is a wise
decision that the SO's would be carried under the ICANN umbrella.
>
>
> This reinforces the concept that SOs are advisory bodies, who make
> recommandations to ICANN, whose Board then has to take the final decision
> (and assume every responsibility, even legal).
True.
>
>
> This said, the fact that the responsibility of decision lies in ICANN's
> Board does not make the SOs useless. They still have a responsibility: the
> one of making good recommandations.
> In fact, the Board can, if it pleases, disregard SOs recommendations, but it
> is obvious that the Internet Community would expect an argumented reason for
> doing that.
Yes, but it s incumbent that there be a check on the "Recommendations" that
the SO's make by the ICANN At-Large membership at the very least.
This is to insure a bottom-up stakeholder driven organization and decision
making tree.
>
>
> What I am trying to say is that the SOs still have an important role to
> play.
> I know that you are not convinced about this, and that, at least for the
> PSO, you have been advocating even its dismissal. I disagree, because I
> believe that the SOs and the Board have distinct and complementary roles,
> and it will not be wise to get the whole thing out of balance.
Yes but without the ICANN At-Large membership having final say in what
policies that the ICANN board may take either from the SO's or the
ICANN BoD itself, you still have an out of balance situation...
>
>
> In fact, my feeling is that your real point is not "a weak vs. strong
> Board", a subject that most of us thought closed (if it ever has been an
> issue), but "weak vs. strong SOs".
> If we go down this path, we may end up in disrupting the authority of the
> SOs (I am talking about the authority to advise or recommend, not to
> decide). Moreover, if their authority is undermined, their capacity to elect
> Board members could be questioned, and in the end we may end up in proposing
> a Board composed only by "at-large" Directors.
Would just At-Large directors be a negitive? In what way? But it
should be incumbent upon the SO's to select candidates, but not appoint
any directors to the ICANN BoD in order to have a bottom-up, stakeholder
driven organizational structure within the ICANN. Those directors-elect
should be elected by the membership of the respective SO at large
membership.
>
>
> Is this the *real* target of this discussion? ;>)
>
> Regards
> Roberto
Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number: 972-447-1894
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208