ICANN News Alert -- Status Update: IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process Implementation

[John C Klensin]

--On Sunday, September 13, 2009 22:59 +0200 Olivier MJ
Crepin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com> wrote:

> Shiva wrote:
> 
>   I wish to request a summary from IETF for the purpose of
> reporting to ALAC and to the at-Large structures through the
>...
> Could I just emphasize Shiva's point and urge for some kind of
> summary to be drafted if possible ? Apart from a select number
> of people at ICANN who follow the IETF process first-hand,
> very few are aware of the great progress that has been made.
> In the last ICANN Sydney conference, questions were asked at
> the GNSO but also at the GAC and nobody had authoritative
> answers. The response was more among the lines of "we'll put
> together a working group to find that out" rather than a
> direct pointer to a document. Time consuming, but also
> frustrating, to say the least...
> 
> Is this something that's workable?

Olivier,

Vint can, as WG Chair, supply an opinion and has done so.  I
could offer an opinion that would be somewhat less useful.  But
the bottom line is that no one can make an accurate prediction
about when the IETF will be finished with something until after
it is finished.  In particular, while I hope that there will not
be a large controversy over some topic (important or not) during
IETF Last Call, there are obviously no guarantees.  Any such
controversy could cause serious disruption to any estimates.

There is also at least one piece of what needs to be done that
is not on the IDNABIS WG charters but that, instead, lies
elsewhere in  the IETF.  For that topic --related to updating
RFC 1123 to permit IDNs at the top level at all--  there is not
even a current Internet Draft.  Were one to appear tomorrow and
be uncontroversial enough, and high priority enough, that the
IESG would issue an IETF Last Call on Tuesday, the earliest
conceivable approval date would be around October 15.  A more
realistic schedule for that one pushes the ICANN Seoul schedule
very hard but, again, no predictions.

   john