Summary

  • The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group asks the ICANN Board to adopt the February Root Server System governance model, provide resources and secretariat support for its Initiation Phase, and set target timelines for that phase and later work.
  • The proposed first phase is deliberately preparatory. A Board decision to start it would not itself give the new Council the model’s full governance powers.

On 13 October, ICANN published a letter from Keith Drazek, interim chair of the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG), pressing for a move from design to implementation of a proposed governance structure for the Root Server System (RSS). The letter asks the Board to do three things: adopt the Functional Model completed by the RSS Governance Working Group (GWG); direct ICANN staff to provide the resources and secretariat needed to launch the Initiation Phase; and set “inspirational target timelines” for completing that phase and the work that follows. The letter is dated 7 October.

RySG’s stated reason is operational dependence. Its gTLD registry members rely on the secure and stable operation of the root-server system. The group argues that a formal structure could make Root Server Operators more accountable and give the system a path to evolve as reliability and resilience needs change. That is the group’s case for action, not evidence that a root server operator has failed or that DNS service is currently at risk.

What the Board has—and has not—said

The request arrived as the Board was preparing to revisit the model. In a 13 October Chair’s Blog preview, Tripti Sinha said directors would continue discussing the GWG proposal. ICANN organization staff would preview implementation work, a timeline and possible guardrails, including how an RSS Council might be chartered and what policies would be needed for a full structure. The public Board activity page listed the regular Board meeting on 18 October as upcoming when checked on 17 October. The record reviewed for this article contains no adoption resolution or committed launch budget. A workshop agenda is not a Board decision.

A start is not the handover

The Functional Model, published on 18 February, sets out three phases. Initiation would form the Council and its Secretariat, establish transparency and prepare the next steps. Its scope is intentionally limited; it is not meant to exercise the future structure’s governance powers. Establishment would put operating policies, procedures and accountability mechanisms in place. Only after defined milestones and the preceding phases would the structure move to a fully empowered Governance Phase.

That staging reflects a practical concern in the model: switching on a new governance body all at once could disrupt a system whose value depends on continuity. The proposal therefore separates creating a forum and its working machinery from assigning it full decision and oversight authority. If the Board accepts RySG’s request, the first visible change should be administrative and procedural, not a change to root-server operation.

The model also distinguishes operation from dependency. Root Server Operators are included individually because they operate the system. The gTLD and country-code registry communities qualify as participant communities under the model’s tests for direct operational dependency and sufficient organization. The distinction matters: reliance on the root gives registries a place in governance discussions, but it does not make them operators.

The unresolved launch conditions

RySG’s new letter does not specify a sum, funding source or detailed calendar. Its earlier public comment shows that the group had already raised the underlying design questions: limits on the number of Council seats held by one organization, financial oversight and transparency from the outset, sustainable funding, and an earlier record of the relationship between the proposed structure, RSSAC and ICANN.

Those are not cosmetic details. The Internet Architecture Board’s 2025 comment supported the need for durable RSS governance while arguing that the draft needed more detail on accountability, practical operation and balanced, timely decisions. The GWG’s model and its public-comment disposition provide a framework, but the Board’s promised “guardrails” will determine how implementation answers those objections.

The immediate test is therefore narrower than whether the Internet needs cooperation around the root. It is whether the Board will pair adoption with a real but bounded first phase: named support, transparent resources, a Council charter and milestones that show when Initiation is complete. A timetable can keep a multi-year design from remaining indefinitely provisional. But speed alone cannot establish legitimacy; the authority to choose representatives, oversee spending and move to the next phase must be visible and reviewable.

Additional official background records: RSSAC058: Success Criteria for the RSS Governance Structure; RSSAC037: A Proposed Governance Model for the DNS Root Server System; Functional Model for Root Server System Governance proceeding; ICANN Correspondence archive; Approved Resolutions: Special Meeting of the ICANN Board, 18 November 2021.