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-
- Internet Society Advisory Council BOF (ISOC)
-
- Reported by George Clapp/Ameritech
-
-
- Membership Status
-
- The group briefly reviewed the statistics on the individual and
- organizational members of the Internet Society (the information was
- extracted from an e-mail distributed by Tony Rutkowski).
-
- As of 2 February 1994, there are 121 ISOC Advisory Council
- organizational members. As of 1 December 1994, there are 3741
- individual ISOC members (from 141 countries). The countries with 1% or
- more of the total members are:
-
-
- Australia 60
- Canada 100
- Czech Republic 42
- France 56
- Germany 87
- Italy 47
- Japan 223
- Netherlands 82
- Spain 40
- Switzerland 45
- Thailand 87
- United Kingdom 120
- USA 1960
-
-
- November ISOC AC Meeting
-
- The group turned to a discussion of the following recommendations made
- at a meeting of the ISOC AC officers in Reston, Virginia, on Wednesday,
- 16 November 1994. The participants of the meeting were: Rick Adams,
- officer; George Clapp, officer; Mike Conn (by phone), officer emeritus;
- C. Joe Pasquariello, officer; Nicholas Trio, officer; and Tony
- Rutkowski, convener.
-
- The following resolutions/recommendations were made:
-
-
- 1. A draft charter for the Advisory Council will be distributed for
- comment.
-
- 2. The ISOC AC officers shall serve for a term of 3 years, after which
- they are not eligible to serve for a consecutive term. After a
- hiatus of one term, however, they are eligible to serve again.
-
- 3. The officers shall not bear titles (i.e., no Chair, Vice-Chair,
- etc.).
-
- 4. Request the Board of Trustees (BoT) to modify the bylaws to seat
- the four officers of AC as voting members of the BoT.
-
- 5. Recommend that the special status of the Charter ISOC Members be
- revoked, while recognizing their contribution.
-
- 6. Funding for administrative tasks for the Internet presently comes
- from multiple sources to multiple destinations. For better
- coordination and to establish the role of the ISOC, this funding
- should be channeled through the ISOC.
-
- 7. Tony Rutkowski will coordinate a Birds of a Feather (BOF) session
- for the ISOC AC at the next IETF.
-
-
- Discussion
-
- Discussion focused on recommendations 4, 5, and 6.
-
- There was general agreement of recommendation 4; no one voiced
- opposition. A debate was related within the Board of Trustees over
- whether the ISOC is an professional association of individuals or of
- organizations.
-
- There was general agreement of recommendation 5.
-
- There was an attempt to clarify recommendation 6. The following
- proposed objective of the ISOC was referenced (Tony Rutkowski, source):
-
-
- ``Coordinating and progressively funding all global internet
- administrative infrastructure, such as naming and addressing,
- standards secretariat, etc.''
-
-
- The following points were made (in no particular order):
-
-
- o We need to know where the funding is going. The benefit of the
- funded work must have some significance to the organization and to
- the country in which the organization resides. An illustrative
- comment was, ``As long as it's global, it's fine.''
-
- o Will the organizational dues increase?
-
- o Will the funding organizations (e.g., NSF) consent to have their
- funds administered by ISOC?
-
- o The ISOC should assert that internet addresses are their
- intellectual property and that they shall administer them. There
- was debate whether this meant that the ISOC would directly
- administer or oversee the administration of the addresses.
-
- o The role of the ISOC was characterized as the following:
-
- - Making sure ``it'' gets done (e.g., naming and addressing, RFC
- editorship).
-
- - Providing a place for liability.
-
- - Acting as the focal organization as administrative
- responsibility for the Internet shifts away from existing
- bodies (e.g., US Federal agencies).
-
- - Acting as a focal point for the general public for information
- concerning the Internet. This was emphasized as perhaps the
- prime purpose of the ISOC.
-
-
- Recommendations and Decisions
-
- o The ISOC should release an Annual Report.
-
- o At the beginning of a calendar year, the ISOC should distribute an
- agenda listing objectives for the year.
-
- o The ISOC AC will convene a meeting at every IETF meeting.
-
-