Re: Notes of meeting of the Multistakeholder Forum

From: Ish Sookun <ish_at_hacklog.in>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:41:03 +0400

Hello all,

I attended the meeting along with SM and Benoit Gentil. This has been my
first Multistakeholder Forum meeting. I shall add my views in this thread.

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 1:56 PM, S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com> wrote:
>
>
> The meeting was chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of
> Technology, Communication and Innovation. I gave a presentation of the
> work of the .mu Select Committee. There was a discussion about what legal
> form the not-for-profit entity should have. Mr A. Radhakissoon commented
> that it could be an association or a society, or a company. I commented
> that a company would look the same as the current .mu entity. There were
> comments about examples of associations, e.g. the Mauritius Turf Club.
> After discussion, there was agreement about having an association. Mr A.
> Radhakissoon and two other members of the forum were chosen to work on the
> by-laws of the association.
>

​Mauritius Turf Club and Mauritius Chamber of Commerce were tossed as
examples of associations that could provide a "skeleton model" on which a
not-for-profit association could be built. SM, Benoit and I, clearly voiced
out that we're NOT in favour of a private company as it could somehow
restrict "membership". Mr. Ramalingum answered SM's query by citing that
the website of the Mauritius Chamber of Commerce publishes their activities
(in a transparent manner)​ and information pertaining to membership as well
is available.

The Chair then proposed Mr. Radhakissoon, Mr. Barlen and one member from
the ICT Authority to prepare this "association model" and propose the same
to the Multistakeholder Forum. The idea was to have a more "tangible"
structure of this not-for-profit entity as it was becoming difficult to
grasp it's mode of operation. Several members agreed that it should be
not-for-profit but still a structure was needed to visualize how it would
operate & exist.


>
> There were a question about whether the technical proposal would work. I
> commented that the .mu Select Committee evaluated the technical aspect to
> see whether it would work and it is up to the not-for-profit entity to see
> how to implement the technical part. This was followed by a question about
> whether there was the technical expertise in Mauritius to implement a .mu
> registry. Mr T. Dabeesing proposed hiring Mr Chris Disspain as he is from
> auDA (Australia) and he is an ICANN board member. I commented that it was
> up to the not-for-profit entity to decide about whether it needs a
> consultant. I asked for my objection to be put in the minutes. The Chair
> suggested that the ICTA hires and pays for the consultant. I did not raise
> any objection about that as it would be a decision of the ICTA.
>

​What I could grasp from the reactions of many is that most people tend to
have presumptions over technicalities that they do not understand. What was
lacking in the technical proposal was some sort of "assurance" that, yes,
this is feasible and it would work. I came to understand that ICTA will
trust the same proposal if it were to be validated by a "foreign expert". I
do not share that opinion.

SM, Benoit and I strongly opposed the idea of having a foreign expert. The
Chair then diplomatically suggested that if an expert were to be called,
that would be at the cost of the ICT Authority and that the
Multistakeholder Forum would not be bound by the same.

Nevertheless, I regard that as a non-necessary expense.​


>
> The Chair mentioned that there has been some discussions with the current
> .mu entity and the amount of fifteen million rupees was proposed as arrears
> for gov.mu and eighteen million ruppees to buy gov.mu. Mr J. Lim asked
> whether it was even possible to buy gov.mu. Mr G. Ramalingum commented
> that it would be cheaper to buy a generic Top-Level Domain.
>

​I doubt if a "caretaker" of a top-level domain can actually "sell" a
secondary level domain. What would happen if someday .mu is re-delegated to
another entity? The latter would not be under any legal obligation to
maintain the "agreements" of the former.​


> The Chair mentioned that the Ministry will be changing the section of ICT
> Act where the Internet Management Committee is mentioned. I asked for not
> having anything in the act about .mu domain names as it was better not to
> cover that through that act or through (government) regulations. The Chair
> commented that there will provision in the next budget to finance a
> not-for-profit entity.
>

​I don't find it proper to mention .mu in the ICT Act. It will give rise to
misinterpretations in the future. Before such proposals are made, I believe
it might be necessary to have proper discussions at the ICT Advisory
Council level.​

Provisions for seed money for the not-for-profit entity is welcomed. In my
opinion, I somehow suggested it in the beginning when we discussed about
"Government funding" in this mailing list. I guess I lacked the proper
words to clarify it.


> I commented that there isn't any alternative if something went wrong with
> .mu and suggested implementing the technical aspect as a safeguard. It was
> mentioned that ICANN would help to get access to the .mu zone. I preferred
> not to make a formal comment about this matter.
>

​I believe we haven't explored all mechanisms yet on how to obtain the .mu
zone data.​

​Regards,​

-- 
​Ish Sookun
- Geek by birth, Linux by choice.
- I blog at HACKLOG.in.
https://twitter.com/IshSookun ^^ Do you tweet?
Received on Wed Apr 22 2015 - 12:41:28 PST

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