Geoff said:

"(I'm no lawyer but) I appears to me that making a corporate entity
be responsible for administration and policy would tie it up in
endless litgation and associated injunctions forever and a day.

What mechanisms would allow this body to operate, rather than simply
spend its entire time defending its actions on court hearings?

What would be the liability of members and directors of this entity?"

 My comment is that legal liability for the activities of the Administrator is
the same whether it is incorporated or not. The benefits of incorporation are
that the liability can be limited to the assets of the company (unless the
directors do something stupid: like  fraud or trade when the company can't pay
its debts) and it provides a vehicle for all the interested parties to
cooperate in the task over the long term: companies don't move jobs or lose
interest or retire unless the board makes them. If there are to be court
proceedings (which we should be able to avoid, it is much better to be a
director of a company being sued than part of a committee where everyone gets
sued personally.

The liability of members would be limited to their "guarantee": members of a
company limited by guarantee guarantee its liabilities to a fixed amount often
$10 or $100 each. The liability of directors is nil unless they commit fraud
or trade while the company can't reasonably be expected to pay its debts and
in some other circumstances that any intelligent and honest director would
avoid. 


In response to my comment:

>It might also say that the company must e facilitate the creation of new
>domains as "reasonably required" or "in relation to is no objection on the
>basis of
>unlawfulness" - it depends how wide we want to go. 


Geoff said:

"errk - I would suggest that this need far more thought"

I agree that this is the sharp end of the future of the dns system and welcome
suggestions comments.

Geoff said:

"I also am totally unsure why this route of incorporation is the chosen
route. Can anyone explain to me why this the case?"

The answer is that we discussed it at the first meeting and the consensus (for
some of the reasons given above) was that it will be the best way to go.


rgds

Patrick
 

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