[governance] Comments related to the WGIG report

[McTim]

Hello again Milton,

Sorry I missed the DC event, I was on a plane at the time ;-(

On 8/15/05, Milton Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:
> >>> McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> 08/13/05 3:14 PM >>>
> [arguing that the Forum does not need a Secretariat]
> 
> >The IETF springs to mind here.  It has only one employee (a recetn
> >hire). It has functioned for many years on volunteer efforts.
> 
> I'm sorry, but this is a factual error. 

Depends on how you define "volunteer" I guess. 

I define it the same as the rootops who "volunteer" to run their
respective rootservers.  They are highly paid professionals, but their
employers don't get paid for running rootservers.

The Corporation for National
> Research Initiatives has served as the IETF Secretariat for many years,
> and has recieved grant money from the USG in part because of that
> function. IETF had a budget of about $2 million per year during this
> period.

Yes, but the IETF had zero employees during that time.  CNRI staff
work for CNRI, not as IETF employees.

> 
> Additionally, NSF and DARPA supported the RFC Editor function with
> grant money during the most important years of the IETF's development
> (1987-1997). 

ACK.  IETF still had zero employees, no?

At the present time, the Internet Society (ISOC) is
> receiving over $3 million in contributions from PIR (the .org registry)
> to support IETF activities.

I don't dispute that the IETF is funded by ISOC, nor that ISOC funds
itself in part via PIR.  AFAIK, the IETF has just the one employee:

http://isoc.org/isoc/media/releases/050531pr.shtml

> 
> People who say the Forum doesn't need a secretariat are, I suspect,
> people who don't really care whether we have a Forum or not.

*care* is not the same as *want*.


-- 
Cheers,

McTim
nic-hdl:      TMCG

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