[Community] summary of today's (11/29) phone call

[Eugene Eric Kim]

Thanks to all who participated on the call this morning: Peter Davis,
Victor Grey, Kaliya Hamlin, Eugene Eric Kim, Brett McDowell, Joaquin
Miller, Dale Olds, Dan Perry, David Recordon, Drummond Reed, Mary Ruddy,
Mary Rundle, Paul Trevithick, Gabe Wachob, and Bill Washburn.

= STATUS =

We started the call with a quick update of where we're currently at.
Drummond updated us on the status of the IC1 / Cordance / XDI.org i-names
agreement.  This agreement gave IC1 the ability to sell i-names as a
fundraiser a few years ago.  One of the conditions of the brand transfer
to IC2 is that this agreement needs to be updated.  According to
Drummond, they've made progress, and things are now in the hands of
XDI.org.  (Note that this agreement doesn't affect IC2 in any way, other
than being a prerequisite to the brand transfer.  It's a way of making
sure that IC1's assets are protected before they transfer their brand.)
Drummond is optimistic that this will be resolved quickly.

Regarding the legal issues for getting IC2 up and running, Dan suggested
that when we're ready to move forward, he and Mary will huddle and come
up with the plan, which they'll bring back to the Stewards Committee.  I
suggested that we set up an open Google Spreadsheet with all the
budgetary info, so that everyone can review and contribute to our budget.

The link on the current IC1 homepage needs updating to adequately reflect
where we are right now.  There's been some discussion between some of us
and some of the IC1 trustees, and hopefully we can get the right access
and agree on what the changes should be before IIW next week.  Victor
(who's an IC1 trustee) will help push this forward.

= PRE-VOTING DISCUSSIONS =

We spent a good portion of our call discussing whether or not there
should be a mandated discussion period before Steward Council votes, and
if so, what that period should be.  The options are:

  1. Have a mandated minimum discussion period, possibly with a capped
     max.  Peter suggested two to three weeks.

  2. Pre-define multiple mandated discussion periods depending on the
     issue.

  3. Require a mandatory discussion period, and have a Stewards Council
     chair determine the length.

  4. Have a 48 hour review period where people can Stewards Council
     members can determine whether or not the chair should have
     discretion on an issue.  If there are no objections, the chair would
     determine the discussion length; otherwise, a mandated minimum (two
     or three weeks) would kick in.

  5. Some variation/combination of the above four options.

Here are the issues and arguments:

  * Several of these options presume that a chair exists in the first
    place.  The tenor of the past discussions on this suggest that
    most/all of us are in favor of having some Stewards Council chair.
    The challenge is with the scope of a chair's power.  Dale expressed
    concern that giving a chair too much leeway in these discussion
    periods essentially transfers a lot of power to the chair, which was
    why option 4 was proposed.

  * The purpose of having a discussion period at all is to give folks a
    fair amount of time to be aware and involved with these issues, given
    the asynchronous nature of the process and the fact that we are all
    very busy people.  In this regard, two weeks seemed to be the magic
    number.

  * The reasoning behind flexibility is that there are real scenarios
    where timeliness is of the essence.  One scenario posed was if there
    were an IP dispute, such as a trademark breach.  Waiting two weeks to
    take action may not be acceptable, and we need the flexibility to
    react accordingly.

  * Bill posed a great analogy for why flexibility is important,
    comparing these issues to those underlying discretionary spending.
    People need some flexibility to act, but when the numbers (or in our
    case, the issues) are sizeable enough, it's important for
    checks-and-balances (such as a longer mandatory discussion period) to
    kick in.

  * I cautioned against over-engineering the rules.  Complexity in
    advance is our enemy.  Let's come up with something that people
    understand and that satisfies the needs that we're aware of right
    now, and if we need to tweak it later, we can.

We agreed to let folks stew over these issues on the mailing list for a
bit, then revisiting it on a future call.  So stew away!

= NEXT GATHERING =

Several of us will be at IIW next week.  We will definitely have at least
one IC session there.  We'll determine when during the marketplace on
Tuesday morning, and will post the time here as soon as we know it so
that we can possibly teleconference folks in as well (although that's
contingent on getting a good phone and microphones, as Joaquin pointed
out).  We will also post summaries of our discussions to this asap.

Our next call will be on Wednesday, December 13, at 9am.

=Eugene

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Eugene Eric Kim ................................... http://xri.net/=eekim
Blue Oxen Associates ........................... http://www.blueoxen.com/
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