Internet kingmakers cry mercy over mad dash to fill global DNS throne

Meetings cancelled as volunteer experts burn out from conference calls

Why this madness? It all comes to a head this September

The reason for this backbreaking push is a deadline set by the US government back in March 2014 of September 2015 – when the current IANA contract is due to expire.

Despite US government representative Larry Strickling making it clear that he is fully prepared to move the deadline by extending the IANA contract for some period of time, the chairs of the different groups remain determined to at least try to hit the September deadline, which means handing in near-final work by July.

While recognizing the fact that hitting the September deadline is unlikely, there remains a strong drive from the group's different chairs to stay on schedule, leading to a number of compromises that the internet community is beginning to rail against, including the removal of one of the two public comment periods for the final proposal.

Back to school

Another group member, technology lawyer Robin Gross, likened the process to cramming for exams. "I remain committed to participating in a dozen or so calls a week, but I'm under no illusion that this last-minute cram job will be any more effective at building global governance institutions than it is to college freshman learning on the night before their final exam," she noted.

While volunteer Avri Doria highlighted that despite having had a year to make progress, the work has only recently picked up due to the imposition of deadlines. "We had time for more intense work earlier in our schedule, but it wasn't until the deadlines were looming that we really bit into the task," she pointed out.

That tension between progress and quality played itself out again earlier on Tuesday. In response to the numerous calls for a more manageable work program, a new timeline was released: four of the calls scheduled for the next two weeks have been cancelled. But that still leaves eight with two weekdays containing three calls each, meaning six hours out of the workday.

And the solution?

The real deadline for an IANA transition is likely to be November 2016, when the US presidential elections take place. At that point, it is possible that a Republican president will be in place and/or that the Republicans will retain control of Congress.

The Republican Party has persistently argued against the transition of the IANA contract away from the US Department of Commerce, and under new leadership. The current drive to make that change looks all too likely to disappear. ®