ASO AC Teleconference 8 April 2010

ASO Teleconference held on Thursday 8 April 2010 − Minutes

AC Attendees:

• Jean Robert Hountomey, JRH – AfriNIC
• Alan Barrett, AB – AfriNIC
• Naresh Ajwani, NA – APNIC
• Kenny Huang, KH – APNIC
• Tomohiro Fujisaki, TF – APNIC
• Louis Lee, LL – ARIN
• Martin Hannigan, MH – ARIN
• Jason Schiller, JS – ARIN
• Sebastián Bellagamba, SB – LACNIC
• Hartmut Glaser, HG – LACNIC
• Dave Wilson, DW – RIPE NCC
• Hans Petter Holen, HPH – RIPE NCC

Secretariat:

• Laureana Pavón, LP – LACNIC

Observers:

• Leo Vegoda, LV – ICANN
• Nate Davis, ND – ARIN
• Einar Bohlin, EB – ARIN
• Germán Valdez, GV – APNIC
• Ernesto Majó, EM – LACNIC
• Raúl Echeberría, RE – LACNIC

Apologies:

• Vincent Ngundi, VN – AfriNIC
• Wilfried Woeber, WW – RIPE NCC

Agenda:

1. Welcome.
2. Agenda review.
3. Approval of the minutes from the 11 March 2010 teleconference.
4. Review of open action items.
5. Outcome of 2010 ICANN board of directors election.
6. Update on the Global Policy Proposal for the Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries.
7. Update on the IANA Policy for Allocation of ASNs to RIRs.
8. Wiki, using chat or Adobe Connect (this was originally suggested in January as a topic for discussion at the Nairobi face to face meeting).
9. ASO AC Meeting Schedule. 2010 face to face meeting.
10. AOB.
11. Adjournment.

1.         Welcome.

LL welcomed all participants to the conference at 13.00 UTC.

LL stated that a beeping tone could be heard on the line and that it was similar to the tone during the last monthly ASO AC conference call, which MH observed was consistent with the conversation being recorded. He asked whether the teleconference was being recorded, to which LP replied that no recording device was being used. MH stated for the record that he does not consent to being recorded during ASO AC conference calls without prior discussion of the AC.

2. Agenda review.

LL proceeded to read the agenda. No comments or suggestions were heard.

3. Approval of the minutes from the 11 March 2010 teleconference.

A motion to approve the minutes of the 11 March 2010 ASO AC teleconference was psented and seconded. There being no objections, the motion carried.

Action item 0410-1: The Secretariat to change the status of the minutes of the 11 March 2010 meeting from draft to approved.

4. Review of open action items.

LL proceeded to read and comment on the list of open action items.

It was determined that Action Item 0310-1 (Secretariat to change the status of the minutes of the 4 February 2010 meeting from draft to approved) and Action Item 0310-2 (Secretariat to set up the mock election and send out the e-mails for the actual election) had been completed.

Regarding Action Item 1109-05 (HPH to incorporate actions carried out by ASO AC in ICANN Board nominations process into report on suggested changes to operating procedures), LL observed that he had seen no updates and asked whether HPH could provide an estimated timeline for the completion of this task or whether he would pfer the task to be re-delegated, to which HPH replied that he would pfer deciding whether to re-delegate the task the following week.

There were no updates on Action Item 1209-02 (Secretariat to create a psentation template in PowerPoint and Keynote for ASO AC members based on new ASO logo/design).

5. Outcome of 2010 ICANN board of directors election.

LL commented that as everyone knew Mr. Kuo Wei-Wu had been elected to the ICANN Board of Directors. He asked that Mr. Kuo Wei-Wu be added to the ASO AC mailing list and invited to participate as an observer, to which LP replied that it would be done.

LL said that he would like to formally thank Raimundo Beca for his services and that there would not be another teleconference before his the end of his term.

HG proposed thanking him formally through a letter, LL agreed.

SB said that it would be best for the AC to pass a resolution on this so that it had more strength than a simple email. He psented the following motion:

“To have a resolution on thanking Raimundo Beca for his services during the last two terms on the ICANN Board of Directors.”

The motion was seconded by HPH and carried unanimously.

Action Item 0410-2: In accordance with the resolution that was unanimously approved by the ASO AC, the Chair to send a letter to Raimundo Beca thanking him for his services on the ICANN Board of Directors.

LL asked whether anyone had encountered problems with the voting system that was used and said that any suggestions regarding the voting system should be sent to the list.

AB said that he had sent some comments to the Secretariat after the trial voting and offered to forward these suggestions to the mailing list. LL asked whether those comments included the idea of trying to keep the same voting system for every election, to which AB replied that they did not.

LL asked whether anybody had found major issues with the election process this time. No replies were heard.

6. Update on the Global Policy Proposal for the Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries.

LL said that he believed that there hadn’t been any movement in relation to this proposal, adding that the two outstanding RIRs would have their meetings next month (ARIN in 2 weeks and RIPE in early May).

HG mentioned that Olof Nordling (ON) had sent a message to the list regarding agenda items 6 and 7 and that Filiz Yilmaz (FY) had replied that the status in RIPE stated in the document was correct.

LL proceeded to read from the document submitted by ON: status in the AfriNIC region: final call concluded; status in the APNIC, ARIN and LACNIC regions: adopted; status in the RIPE region: in discussion (following ARIN adoption).

DW asked whether the text adopted in ARIN was the same as the one adopted in the other regions. LL replied that he believed it was not and suggested that ON could include a special note in the document in this sense

JS asked whether it was correct that they had once recommended sending a note to the EC saying that the text was significantly different.

LL replied that it had been done and that there was no follow up from either side. He said that in his opinion they should each go back to their RIRs and touch base with their own NRO repsentatives to get a sense of what’s going on.

7. Update on the IANA Policy for Allocation of ASNs to RIRs.

LL proceeded to read the status in each region from the update sent by ON: in the AfriNIC region the final call has concluded and in all the other regions the policy has been adopted. He asked whether anyone from AfriNIC knew when to expect the proposal to be approved.

AB said that he did not know when the board was planning to meet and that he had no further information. He added that according to the AfriNIC website the proposal is awaiting board approval.

LL said that after its approval by the AfriNIC board the NRO will forward the proposal to the AC. He said that this policy proposal is less contentious and complicated than the pvious one and suggested that they start working on it soon so that the reports can be ready quickly.

LL asked the team members for this policy proposal in each region to identify themselves. AB replied that he believed that for AfriNIC it was Vincent Ngundi (not psent on the call). JS said he’d do it for the ARIN region. It was established that the team member for the LACNIC region was Francisco Obispo, and for the RIPE region DW.

LL suggested that they start working on the global policy proposal report to confirm that the RIRs’ policy proposal processes have been followed and that all their viewpoints have been addressed. He said that after that report they would advice on this proposal.

8. Wiki, using chat or Adobe Connect (this was originally suggested in January as a topic for discussion at the Nairobi face to face meeting).

LL observed that the wiki, chat and Adobe Connect were part of the larger issue of communications.

He said that he had checked out Adobe Connect because ICANN was using it at the Nairobi conference and that in his opinion it was nice: it has streaming video, on-line chat, psentations, etc. and is reminiscent of an X Window interface running on a Mac. He added that it might be useful either for online chatting or for teleconferences, or that perhaps it could be used at the face-to-face meeting. He said that it’s what ICANN uses, so they might offer it to the ASO AC.

He asked whether there were any concerns about using an online chat facility, adding that he was concerned that this would mean holding meeting with only some of the members and that therefore no decisions could be made. He said that this had already been discussed: that they would be free to talk to each other but must remember that they cannot take action during these so called “non-meetings”.

MH said that if they would not have any official actions or if they didn’t want the appearance of official action they shouldn’t consider any chat solution. He added that in his opinion a chat solution would be more of a hassle than a value.

DW said that he agreed with MH, that as they would not be able to conduct any official business, if somebody wants to chat among themselves they could do it privately.

LL brought up the other related item: the wiki. He said that he does not understand why they’ve been talking about this for two years.

MH said he wasn’t sure it would work and that he’d to get some more details. He added that the fact that we don’t have one but are still talking about it might mean that there’s a need for it, perhaps for logistic reasons, when changing Secretariat, and that unless something specific is needed, in his opinion, the website serves our purpose. In his opinion members would not have time to contribute to a wiki.

LL agreed, saying that wikis survive only if members add information. He said that in his opinion what needs to be disseminated can be distributed via email and that having a wiki is not urgent.

DW said that perhaps for a specific purpose the need might arise in the future. He added that if having a wiki was quick, easy and cheap they should just do it, but if not it would also be OK.

LL noted that having this wiki might mean reading it behind a login and added that this would repsent a whole new set of infrastructure needs.

After further discussion, the following action item was decided:

Action item 0410-3: The Secretariat to find out how much effort and cost would be involved in setting up a wiki − both as a private wiki and as a public wiki − and send that information to the list for further discussion.

9. ASO AC Meeting Schedule. 2010 face to face meeting.

LL observed that there had been some activity on the list in the sense of having the face-to-face meeting in Brussels during the ICANN meeting. He added that constituency day was on Tuesday and that they should try to schedule the meeting for Tuesday 22 June.

DW proposed the following motion:

“That the ASO AC holds its face-to-face meeting on 22 June at the ICANN meeting in Brussels.”

The motion was seconded by HG. A roll call vote was taken with the following result: 9 in favor of the motion, none opposed (at the time of voting MH, NA and HPH were not on the line). The motion carried.

LL said that some items had already been suggested for the agenda − which would be similar to the one originally proposed for Nairobi − but that it would be good to add a review of what has been done in relation to the Board election process and write down on paper any suggested changes.

10. AOB.

HG asked if the NRO EC members psent could inform the ASO AC on the status of the relationship between ITU and the NRO discussing IPv6 matters.

RE proceeded to explain that at the last ITU council meeting (October last year) it was decided to create a working group for some IPv6 issues. Among other things, the group’s Terms of Reference − which are available in many places − include things such as pparing a global policy proposal for making IPv6 reservations for countries, analyzing country Internet registry model, and analyzing the feasibility or convenience of ITU becoming an IPv6 registry.

He said that this group is chaired by a repsentative of the United Arab Emirates, that it met in March in Geneva and repsentatives of the RIRs were invited to participate in this meeting. AfriNIC and APNIC are sector members of  ITU-D, so they had the right to participate; but although the other RIRs are not members, they were also invited to participate.

He said that in his opinion it was a new experience for the ITU, as they are not accustomed to holding these “open” meetings − which are not open at all, in fact they were “invitation only”. He added that, for example, that some people from ICANN who were psent in Geneva were not invited to participate. He said that after some governments had noted this they had been told that they would be invited to the next meeting (1-2 September).

RE said that the discussions had been interesting: there was not strong support to move ahead with the implementation of CIR model, the pparation of a global policy proposal, or the possibility of the ITU becoming a registry.

RE said that discussions focused on the needs of developing countries: the proposal attempts to address the needs of developing countries, but it is necessary to define what developing countries need for the implementation of IPv6. He said that a correspondence group had been created to work on this, that these groups work via email and that apparently they will be open to the technical community.

He added that another correspondence group would be created to analyze developing countries’ needs and concerns regarding the current address management system. RE said that there were no biased discussions, that some had expssed that they appeared to be proposing solutions before understanding the problems that need to be solved.

He mentioned that on the second day there was a discussion on the text of the meeting’s report, adding that a draft was still under discussion by those who participated and that once the final report was agreed he believed it would be published, although he didn’t know exactly how the ITU works.

RE said that the correspondence groups would begin working soon and that another face-to-face meeting would be held in Geneva on 1-2 September and then the ITU Plenipot would be held in Mexico.

LL thanked Raul for his report and asked whether a timeline had been established for the correspondence groups to end their work.

RE replied that he believed so, but that it had not been very clear at the meeting. In his opinion some results should be expected before the next meeting of the working group (September).

To conclude, RE said that in his opinion it had been a positive discussion for the RIRs and the address community, as most of the comments at the meeting were supportive of the current system. He added that he believes it was a positive result, but that discussions will continue.

He then asked whether those psent had seen a recently published interview with Alexander Ntoko − one of the highest ranking ITU staff members − in which he shows that the ITU continues with the intention of having a more prominent role in the management of IPv6 addresses.

LL said that, if it were possible, he would suggest that the working group talk to Bill Woodcock and PCH as they do a lot of work on developing countries and might be able to provide relevant information, including a comparison between different countries. RE added that they should also talk to people from developing countries.

LL said that he’d met with Rod Beckstrom − CEO and psident of ICANN − for lunch and that Rod had wanted to touch base with us and confirm that he was up to spot on our concerns, our role, he’s very receptive to that kind of feedback.

LL brought up the issue of the ICANN accountability and transparency review team. He said that, as many might already know, he’d been selected to fill one seat from the ASO on this review team and was under the impssion that there had been some misunderstanding about what happened with SB and HG and their candidacies. He asked whether SB or HG would like to comment on that.

HG said that he had no problem with the person that was elected but that the process had not been transparent or open, that the process was conducted behind the curtains. He said that in his understanding ICANN was to blame for not doing something transparently, though there was no question about LL’s person or qualifications.

LL said that part of the problem was that they had not made their intentions clear in the documents: there was so much documentation that the important things were buried. He added that after ICANN had been accused of not being transparent, as a response, they put out a lot of information and now people have complained that there is too much to digest. He said that the next response has been to summarize some of this documentation. He said he expected the accountability and transparency team to look into this and provide recommendations.

He said that the review team had just scheduled their first teleconference for Monday and were going to have a face-to-face meeting soon. He added that possibly their second meeting would be in Brussels in June.

He said that if the AC would like him to do so, he would forward the public announcement about what’s happened so far to the list.

HPH said he did not understand HG’s complaint about a lack of openness and transparency, noting that he’d seen several announcements and that finding volunteers had been difficult.

SB clarified that HG was referring to the selection process, not the nomination process, that ICANN had made a non-transparent selection from among candidates that had been nominated through a transparent process, to which LL replied that there would be a chance to revise the process for the following teams.

LL mentioned that there was a recommendation that review team members do not serve on more than one other team, which opens the possibility of other members endorsed by the ASO to serve on the teams. He said that they were asked to be on only one other team out of the four that will be created.

SB said that he fully supported LL’s selection, but added that clearly two people in a room handpicking candidates could not be called an open and transparent process.

LL said that he agreed and that he would take this back to the review team as formal feedback.

SB said that this was important pcisely because it was a review team on openness and transparency: if the transparency and openness review team is not open and transparent then it’s work is biased by definition.

HPH said that, while he agrees that he would like more transparency and openness in the ICANN process, they should now focus on the positive and suggest improvements to the process.

HG mentioned that in Nairobi he was approached by some members who attended the ICANN meeting who congratulated him for having been appointed as one of the members of the committee. He added that he was surprised because they were simply normal participants of the ICANN community, yet they knew details that were never published or announced. He said that there appeared to be two levels of ICANN members: those who are regular members and some that have influence behind the curtains.

HG said that no action was needed, that he was just expssing his reaction: indignation because of the process having been manipulated. He repeated once more that he was happy that LL had been selected, and LL concluded by saying that as the review team process continues he would let the AC know.

RE asked whether the lunch LL had with the ICANN CEO was just the two of them and whether it was a formal lunch or simply two friends meeting for lunch.

LL replied that it had been just the two of them, that it had been very informal, and that Rod Beckstrom had wanted to touch base. He said that they’re both local, and that it was mostly to say thank you for your support, to learn some more about the ASO structure and how the ASO AC is set up, as he still has a steep learning curve − he comes from outside the ICANN community and there are things he may need to be told again. For example, LL said that he had had to clarify that he’s the chair of the ASO AC but not the chair of the ASO. He said that there might be further opportunities for educating staff members that are local to him.

RE said that two people meeting for lunch was fine, that there was no question about that. He added that he just wanted to remind everyone that the ASO is ruled by the ASO MoU which was signed between the NRO and ICANN and that any discussion about the ASO structure should be conducted with participation of more people (ASO AC and NRO).

LL said that he would refer Rod Beckstrom to the MoU.

HG said that friends are friends and can go anywhere, but that it was important to avoid any private conversations that could be related to everyone in the constituency or the AC. He said that at the moment he was very conservative about any relationship with Rod.

LL stated that of course he would involve the whole ASO AC in any opinion that they might have, but that this had been just a simple way to educate Rod Beckstrom on the facts. He added that if Rod is not educated on the current situation he’s likely to commit egregious mistakes.

HPH commented that in the past there had been similar informal meetings with all the other CEOs to educate them and talk to them about the ASO’s points of view. He added that it was important for them to have good relations with ICANN staff.

LL said that in his opinion it would be useful for both sides to invite Rod Beckstrom  to the ASO AC face-to-face meeting, perhaps for an hour or so. LL said that he’d work on the scheduling with Rod and his administrator.

LP noted that a new conference service had been used for this teleconference and asked for feedback. Several problems were reported but it was agreed that the new service could be used again, trying to work out these issues.

11. Adjournment

HG motioned to adjourn, SB seconded the motion.

The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 14.30 UTC.

Last modified on 29/01/2020