RSSAC Work Session (2 of 3)

MTS - A/V: Hello and welcome to RSSAC Workstation 2. My name is Ozan and I'm a participation manager for this session.

MTS - A/V: Please note that this session is being recorded and is governed by the ICANN Community Participant Code of Conduct, ICANN Expected Standards of Behavior, and ICANN Community Anti-Harassment Policy.

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MTS - A/V: On the questions and the…

MTS - A/V: Chat will be read aloud during the session as time permits, and when directed by the chair of the session. If you wish to speak, please raise your hand in Zoom, or otherwise as directed. When speaking, please state your name for the record, and speak clearly at a moderate pace.

MTS - A/V: I will now hand the floor over to Jeff Osborn.

MTS - A/V: Thank you, Ozan. Welcome everyone. We are having the preparation for the board meeting on Tuesday. And so for that, I'm going to hand this over to Wes Hardaker. Wes.

MTS - A/V: Thanks.

MTS - A/V: So, welcome to Bali, everybody.

MTS - A/V: I've been here for a few days of meetings already.

MTS - A/V: So we have a question to the board, which we discussed at the last meeting, and it's been sent to the board, and they have an answer, sort of prepared, and then they have a question from the board to us. Why don't you go ahead and scroll down? We don't need to, read our question to them. That's for them to answer, right?

MTS - A/V: The question from the board to RSAC, we actually also discussed the other day in the meeting. You'll note that they're both very sort of similar in nature. A couple of confusing, you know, things about this. One, they're similar, so my plan that I talked with the board about as well is, I'm just gonna read them both.

MTS - A/V: together, and then I will let the board respond, you know, to their make their statement, and then I need somebody to respond from the other side, from the RSSAC side, and then I think we'll likely have a back and forth.

MTS - A/V: One of the odd things about these questions is we're talking about a group that neither one of us are.

MTS - A/V: Right, so the GW… we can comment, you know, as root server operators that did participate in the GWG,

MTS - A/V: But the end result is neither group actually, you know, has immediate follow on with respect to the Gdbg. We're curious about where the board is. And and I actually just walked out of a meeting

MTS - A/V: where we discuss the Gwg further. I can tell you what the Board is going to say in advance, because they're not done thinking about it either. Right?

MTS - A/V: All of this will come out in much greater detail, and I think it'll be a really good discussion.

MTS - A/V: Having said that, it is a little weird, because we're dancing around talking about people that technically aren't in the room, or at least not at the table, so just bear that in mind, right? That, when you're… when we're speaking about a thing, we're really trying to predict the future of the governance of the root service system, of which, of course.

MTS - A/V: RSAC cares a lot about, and even the future of RSAC is, you know, somewhat unknown.

MTS - A/V: Going back to 37, we didn't even handle that in RSSAC 37.

MTS - A/V: I will say one of the things that we can say is we have already documented our advice.

MTS - A/V: right? Starting with 37 going to

MTS - A/V: 50? I'm blanking… 58? 58, which is, you know, the success criteria, as well as principles along the way, as well as various other things. 55, I think, is the principles.

MTS - A/V: So when it comes to the board asking, you know, well, what do you think about the GWG stuff? We have already documented all of our thoughts. We have no new documentation since the GWG, you know, has come out. That doesn't prevent us from having opinions, of course.

MTS - A/V: all that is to say, and the other reminder that I will say is, this is a public open dialogue meeting.

MTS - A/V: The RSOs are in a spotlight again. There are certainly countries of the world that still insist that,

MTS - A/V: that they want better representation and things like that. So

MTS - A/V: Let's do some effort to keep, you know, civility in mind as we correspond in a very public dialogue that will be watched.

MTS - A/V: Having said that.

MTS - A/V: that's… that was sort of the lay of the land when I run the meeting. My plan is, unless you guys want something different, I'm here to serve you, is I will read both questions, then I'll have the board give an answer, because they're so similar, and then I'll have RSSAC

MTS - A/V: A representative from our site give an answer, and then we'll just do a lot of back and forth.

MTS - A/V: I have a hard time believing we're going to consume the entire time period with essentially one question.

MTS - A/V: It is Tuesday. Well, both days. I don't think we'll consume this entire time session either, so…

MTS - A/V: But my first question is, who is willing to take an initial stab at responding to the dialogue? And obviously look at either our current chair or our next chair. Yeah, I was gonna say.

MTS - A/V: I… I would put this to the wisdom of the group, I think.

MTS - A/V: Where,

MTS - A/V: You guys have known me for 4 years doing this. I promise not to embarrass anybody, but on the other hand.

MTS - A/V: If I was to respond, I wouldn't have much more to say than what Wes did, which is, we spent years putting something together. We who happened to be in RSSAC, who happened to have also been in GWG, one of whom I was not.

MTS - A/V: have put together something and then responded to it in a way that is very public and known and everything else. So at this point in time, to ask us what we think of that seems kind of odd.

MTS - A/V: because we've responded to it. So that's obviously not the politic thing to say. But that's just sort of me going. That's what that's what I think is going on. So I would say that in some way that didn't make anybody feel that they were being ignored or belittled. But the real question here is to the RSSAC.

MTS - A/V: Do you want…

MTS - A/V: The tall, handsome Nordic gentleman over there who's going to be doing this for two to four years to take this on, or the guy who gets to run from the room and

MTS - A/V: wave…

MTS - A/V: Or both. There's no issue with multiple people wanting to respond as well, but… I mean, your… Do you have an opinion on this?

MTS - A/V: By the way.

MTS - A/V: I don't have a strong opinion. No, I'm I'm willing to do it if if that's what we arrive at.

MTS - A/V: You know, it just strikes me as this is something where,

MTS - A/V: Members of the Board have made it clear that they wish.

MTS - A/V: the GWG had gotten farther, and it didn't.

MTS - A/V: And that's that. And so it's sort of a sunk cost fallacy where I wish it was better. I wish I had a prehensile tail. I mean, none of those are useful now. So

MTS - A/V: I'm not really sure what we want to accomplish, other than to have nobody get mad and live through an hour session.

MTS - A/V: I think it would be important to do what I said earlier, and I think your answer of, we've documented our opinion exactly matches what I said earlier, right?

MTS - A/V: We have…

MTS - A/V: not done more than what we've already done, and we already have a document saying that we approve of the GWG, right? We filed a public comment with respect to the GWG report, so…

MTS - A/V: That's already there. So I don't think it's it's rude to say anything like that. And in fact, I think our question to the board is the same way.

MTS - A/V: you know, what do you think about the GWG document? Well, the board's gonna say, we haven't finished talking about it yet, so they don't have an opinion either. It's gonna be a very short meeting if both sides say we have nothing to say, right?

MTS - A/V: Oh, do you? Okay? Do you genuinely think, then, that that wouldn't be considered impolite.

MTS - A/V: Not if it's phrased right, no, and you did… no, so I think it would be fine to say.

MTS - A/V: So I guess one of the things that if you read between the line and the board questions right?

MTS - A/V: They're saying

MTS - A/V: Following the GWG report, RSAC has documented a lot of stuff. Is there anything in particular you want to call out to make sure that as the board goes forward trying to figure out what the next steps of implementation of the GWG advice and adoption might be, anything that we'd be missing that you really want to make sure we know about?

MTS - A/V: That's an interesting and entirely different question. Then that's real. That's a great angle, Wes, I think so. The question becomes, has anything changed in our thinking since we gave them a written response? And if the answer is no, then this is as simple as

MTS - A/V: it was an honor to work with all of you and spend the time putting together, and the Gwg. Submitted, and we answered the thing, and we got together and said, Is there an update to it? And it turns out there isn't. So our input stands lovely to see you all. I I did know Rob had his hand up earlier. Rob, did you want to say something?

MTS - A/V: Yeah, thanks.

MTS - A/V: In terms of how to respond to this, I think that we're starting down

MTS - A/V: The path that we should continue on. And that is, let's think of this in terms of.

MTS - A/V: time slices.

MTS - A/V: Because… I think there's some points that are In danger of being overlooked.

MTS - A/V: One of them is that, yes, RSAC published RSAC 037, the original document, and then RSAC 058.

MTS - A/V: The success criteria, as Wes and Jeff have just been talking about, RSAC also published RSAC 063.

MTS - A/V: Which is the short two-paragraph statement during the public comment period that said, Yes, we're…

MTS - A/V: broadly in favor of what the GWG has put out for public comment, so that Crystallized an RSSAC.

MTS - A/V: opinion as of… The… towards the middle or late 2025, if I've got the timeline right.

MTS - A/V: There's then the actual So then there's the post RSAC 0 6, 3.

MTS - A/V: Period. Until today. To think about, during which time GWG finalized and published and sent, transmitted.

MTS - A/V: its recommendation. So I'm assuming nothing's changed in our opinion.

MTS - A/V: And I think that's worth saying.

MTS - A/V: The only other thing, and I don't want to over-interpret it, but the question then talks about what suggestions does RSAC have to ensure that RSAC's advice remains at the core of the proposed governance structure?

MTS - A/V: Now, that's a forward-looking statement.

MTS - A/V: That seems to be asking, What are our recommendations for, sort of like, post… initiation engagement between RSAC and

MTS - A/V: the governance structure. And there's an implicit. I think there's an implied assumption

MTS - A/V: in the way that question is phrased again. I'm in danger of over interpreting it. It might not have been the intention. but it seems to assume.

MTS - A/V: that there's some requirement for RSSAC's advice to remain at the core of the proposed

MTS - A/V: governance structure because the proposed governance structure doesn't incorporate RSSAC at all.

MTS - A/V: The proposed governance structure doesn't have any preconditions about the relationship between RSSAC and the proposed governance structure.

MTS - A/V: And I think…

MTS - A/V: There's an important distinction to keep in mind, and that is that RSSAC is a body that was chartered

MTS - A/V: to provide advice, to the ICANN community.

MTS - A/V: And to the Board of Directors.

MTS - A/V: That's our purpose when we're sitting in a room Wearing an RSSAC.

MTS - A/V: The governance structure, on the other hand, is being put together for its purpose. So, in terms of

MTS - A/V: The forward-looking statement, what suggestions does RSAC have to ensure RSAC's advice remains at the core of the proposed governance structure? At one level, there's an argument that says, well.

MTS - A/V: That's…

MTS - A/V: not… that's kind of not the point of the governance structure. We… I'm assuming that we would continue to publish advice notes from time to time, and if some of those advice notes relate to the operation of the governance structure, that's certainly within our charter.

MTS - A/V: But I don't know, we haven't sort of thought about, do we need to change the charter, do we need to change the focus, or…

MTS - A/V: Or anything like that. I think the simplest thing

MTS - A/V: the simplest thing that I mean what I found kind of surprising about the about the Board's most recent statements. and the board minutes, the the statements from the the board minutes.

MTS - A/V: were that… There's a concern, or there's, like, a lot of…

MTS - A/V: Discussion within the board, apparently, about, well, how do these proposals

MTS - A/V: match up to O. 3, 7, and 058.

MTS - A/V: And…

MTS - A/V: I would hope that we'd be in a position to say, actually, we think they're doing just fine. So why are you worried about whether you think they match up with O. 3, 7, and O. 5, 8, as the people who published O. 3, 7, and O. 5, 8.

MTS - A/V: We think this is the right next step.

MTS - A/V: So, in other words, what I'm trying to say in the nicest possible way is if you're waiting on us, you're going backwards.

MTS - A/V: I think that you just said 2 conflicting things, Rob, and and you're right in both of them. But

MTS - A/V: I want to point out one… the important thing you said first, right, which is that RSSAC created advice.

MTS - A/V: toward the direction of creating a governance system. Full stop.

MTS - A/V: That is what my interpretation of that question means, right?

MTS - A/V: What is, does RSAC have any advice? Is there anything, as I said to Jeff a second ago, is there any concerns that we have that our advice as RSAC was not being properly incorporated into the future of the governance system?

MTS - A/V: which is independent of will RSAC be around, right? Nobody's answered that question yet. We talked about that in 2015. Does this mean RSAC can go away, and this new thing takes over, and nobody has an answer for that yet?

MTS - A/V: Then the GWG didn't talk about it either. You're right. So I don't think that the question is asking, is RSSAC gonna be involved in the governance system? You're right, there are two parallel streams and whether or not one shuts down or not is independent.

MTS - A/V: The question was, is the advice that RSSAC has published in the past properly incorporated into the GWG's

MTS - A/V: report, and do you have any advice to make sure that RSSAC's opinions, as published so far.

MTS - A/V: you know, will be incorporated. Do we believe that in one answer, Rob's could certainly be. We don't care anymore, because the Gwg is on its own. And and so we, our advice, held its ground by getting us to this point, and you can now disregard it as advice that we need to consider.

MTS - A/V: That would be an extreme other end of the statement, right?

MTS - A/V: We believe our advice is now obsolete. We could say that. I'm not sure that we do, because the success criteria seems to be, you know, the measuring stick to hold up to the governance system to a large extent.

MTS - A/V: Liman.

MTS - A/V: Liman here. So, so one way of turning that is that to… to… tell the board

MTS - A/V: that we still believe that the success criteria are very important. So please pay very close attention to them.

MTS - A/V: It's also then stating that that recommendation in document 58 still holds.

MTS - A/V: Oh.

MTS - A/V: Yeah, no, that's a good point, and I'll follow that up with.

MTS - A/V: we recognize that the architecture of the governance system doesn't match 37 anymore, exactly, and we're okay with that. You could say that, right? I'm just making up words, I'm not saying even that's my opinion, but…

MTS - A/V: That's sort of what you implied.

MTS - A/V: Well, just to circle back, Wes, I mean, it was not my intention in any way to say that we want to, as RSSAC, plan to step back or just, you know, ignore 037 and 058.

MTS - A/V: And if I said anything to suggest that, then I apologize.

MTS - A/V: Certainly, I think that 037 and 058 remain

MTS - A/V: And the other documents that are referenced in those remain important.

MTS - A/V: Reference points.

MTS - A/V: For what happens next.

MTS - A/V: Oh.

MTS - A/V: And… I would suggest that there's even some evidence from within the community that people are beginning to cite

MTS - A/V: those documents, especially O. 5, 8, as a measuring stick in terms of assessing what's going on. Some of the public comment in particular came back with focused commentary about adhering to

MTS - A/V: The success criteria.

MTS - A/V: I think there's still some work to be done.

MTS - A/V: I don't know if the board… or I doubt that the board are in any way confused about this, but I think there's still some work to be done with the community, and this exchange with the board

MTS - A/V: Might be a good opportunity for it.

MTS - A/V: To remind folks that the first phase the initiation phase, proposed by the GWG.

MTS - A/V: Is not the endpoint.

MTS - A/V: The initiation phase is not a functioning.

MTS - A/V: governance body.

MTS - A/V: It is… a group With a different composition.

MTS - A/V: Having thought about it very carefully, a different composition.

MTS - A/V: That needs to resolve some of the unresolved.

MTS - A/V: Questions? So… Does the initiation phase

MTS - A/V: of the GWG proposal answer all of the success criteria? No, it doesn't.

MTS - A/V: Of course not. Does it answer all the problems in 037? No, of course not. No, it doesn't.

MTS - A/V: But is it the next…

MTS - A/V: Best step that gets us closer to a governance structure.

MTS - A/V: That will address those things.

MTS - A/V: In my opinion, yes.

MTS - A/V: Because that… the consensus that was achieved within GWG,

MTS - A/V: was not an easy consensus to achieve.

MTS - A/V: The the number of opinions in the room was quite

MTS - A/V: Divergent on a number of them.

MTS - A/V: So… I do believe we should be confident that yes, this is the right.

MTS - A/V: Next step, or we feel that this step is a very positive step and moves us in the right direction.

MTS - A/V: It's certainly not an endpoint.

MTS - A/V: and it's certainly not a fully functioning governance body.

MTS - A/V: on Day one.

MTS - A/V: and I'm sure that there Will be, and must be.

MTS - A/V: Inputs, in terms of what that group comes up with, Next.

MTS - A/V: So, more opportunity for discussion downstream, more opportunity for insight, more opportunity for Course correction, if need be.

MTS - A/V: Okay, I mean, all your points are good.

MTS - A/V: Sounds like you were rebutting somebody's statement, but I couldn't match it with the statement you were rebutting, but that's fine.

MTS - A/V: So, any other opinions on things that we might want to…

MTS - A/V: you know, say to the board. I will… I think during the session, I will likely say that, you know, this is a brainstorming or a…

MTS - A/V: an open dialogue, and, you know, any particular RSOs or RSSAC member statements do not, you know, have not been codified into a consensus and agreement yet, so just take that with a grain of salt, and that's, of course, fair, but…

MTS - A/V: Anybody else have thoughts or opinions.

MTS - A/V: Our SEC members.

MTS - A/V: Is there… so I guess we need to get back to the case of either Jeff or Liman most likely, starting the conversation, typically, should be the chairs if there's only a single question.

MTS - A/V: Liman raised his hand, so he wins. Actually, I had another question to you in relation to the board here.

MTS - A/V: Oh.

MTS - A/V: In the discussion that we expect to happen.

MTS - A/V: Would it be appropriate to ask the board if there is something particular that they are worried about, that they would… that they seek our input on?

MTS - A/V: because then RSSAC would be happy to take that and work with it.

MTS - A/V: I would argue. This is a question from me to you and to the group here.

MTS - A/V: No, that's that's a very fair point. And

MTS - A/V: And I like that, and so, I mean, essentially, that's almost what the question, you know, to us was asking, is… is… Is there additional advice you would like to craft, you know, for them to consider as they're trying to figure out how to establish, you know, phase one of the governance system?

MTS - A/V: There's not a harm in that, I would say. Phrase it carefully.

MTS - A/V: But other than that, yeah.

MTS - A/V: you know this. This will be a good dialogue. I think the Board would love to hear

MTS - A/V: you know, more opinions of of where things land. It's very easy to read a long

MTS - A/V: document of any piece of advice, and not really pull out the feelings and the emotions and the, you know, the love or hate or whatever.

MTS - A/V: Somebody had expressed concern that the board had some reservations about the GWG document. I will tell you, and I'm not going to try and summarize the board, or I'm certainly not going to speak for them.

MTS - A/V: But I think the general consensus of not just even the board or even within ICANN, but with a larger constituency of the internet ecosystem, and that includes the IAB that just drafted something as well, is this is still a step forward.

MTS - A/V: Did it go as far as anybody was hoping? I'm going to say no. That probably includes RSSAC. It includes the GWG. We wish we would have gotten farther, but we didn't, and that's okay.

MTS - A/V: It's still a step forward.

MTS - A/V: That was my conclusion at the Usc. Route, when we were having this dialogue before the Gwg report got published is

MTS - A/V: Do we like it? Do we agree with everything in it? No, is it still a step forward? Yes, it's a small step smaller than I think many people were hoping.

MTS - A/V: But it's… but it's a step.

MTS - A/V: Well, if, if, if Lehman is,

MTS - A/V: willing to have a say. I'm thinking having a two-parter probably allows us to have a range of.

MTS - A/V: Comment, that's a good thing.

MTS - A/V: What I was going to say, I think, is going to be,

MTS - A/V: altered a little bit by by some of what Rob was saying. But I think the idea of opening with that, and then you know the past and the future is, I'll open with the I don't think we had a whole lot more to say, and then

MTS - A/V: who representing We have to set… how long do you think we should?

MTS - A/V: be in answering this. Is this a…

MTS - A/V: I mean, I think it's an hour-long session, and we do not have an hour's worth of answers to fulfill, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Okay, so… But I like your notion, so I think what you're… Four minutes, is that a problem? No. Okay. Not at all.

MTS - A/V: Then I think I'm going to ask Rob to give me a hand and actually put something together. I always forget you don't have to do this off the cuff. And having something written, I think this is important enough, I'd be happy

MTS - A/V: Yeah. So so do recognize

MTS - A/V: you know, a number of years ago, three-ish, I want to say, years ago, we did try and switch to a more… less scripted mechanism. So it's fine to do that, but so recognize that, you know, in the long run, it's supposed to be a fairly open dialogue. The GAC and board relationship is a little bit more…

MTS - A/V: formal, which I now know I have to speak to the other day, but… so what… I think what you're saying is I'll turn it to you first, and then Liman, and then we'll open the floor after that. Does that sound right? Yeah, if you don't mind, and…

MTS - A/V: I just know myself too well. It's too easy to like. Go for something funny or whatever, and I would really feel more comfortable having something, even if I don't read it correctly. Just so I don't go off script. Yeah, you are welcome to read a script if you want to. I appreciate that. Okay.

MTS - A/V: So Liman, are you okay with I'll open for a few minutes and then it's yours? I'm perfectly happy with that. Two things. Can I be in on that meeting with Rob so that the three of us work together?

MTS - A/V: And I… The…

MTS - A/V: because of my bad memory, I need to put down, you know, talking points or something. I don't need to have a full script, but I need to remember what to talk about. I always have talking points, so don't worry about that. Every time I talk to the board, I'm, like, staring at a list of bullets that I'm trying to get my point across, so that's fine. I will agree to that.

MTS - A/V: We'll agree to that only if I can pick up the bar tab.

MTS - A/V: I'll think about it. Okay. It would be helpful once you do… the three of you work this out, send it my way, just so I can know what's coming, so I can think about follow-on dialogue and stuff. You don't have to, that's up to you, but it would be helpful to me.

MTS - A/V: Sounds like a perfectly fair request.

MTS - A/V: I think we have a plan. I don't see any more discussion or hands, or…

MTS - A/V: Anybody have final points to bring up? Concerns?

MTS - A/V: should go swimmingly smooth. So

MTS - A/V: Jeff, I turn it back to you for official closing of the meeting.

MTS - A/V: Why, thank you, Wes. I'm glad we could have this dialogue this afternoon. All of you are

MTS - A/V: I can't do an AI. I was trying to do my AI impression. Anyway, thanks all. I don't think I have anything else, so I'm gonna throw the ball to Ozan.

MTS - A/V: Please stop the recording.