I actually disagree very much with this.  

I don't think the differences are superficial at all, I think they are fundamental to the organizational architecture of ICANN and quite easily seen once you understand that organizational structure and design.

Yes, I think that the characteristic of membership in the two groups are similar but not identical:
One focuses more on registrants though it has users in it purview and the other exclusively on users - and yes many people and organizations are both.
In one there can't be commercial members whereas in other there can be.  
So in NCSG, shades of grey between commercial and non-commercial have important meaning, in ALAC they don't really.

But the larger difference is in the  roles and responsibilities of the groups:  

One's mandate is  to focus on being part of creating/managing the policy recommendations on GLTDs and all things related to GTLDS, and only GTLDS.

While the other is mandated to give advice on anything that happens in and around ICANN.

avri





On 17 Nov 2011, at 12:54, Milton L Mueller wrote:

> Actually the differences are pretty superficial, in my view, which often makes them hard to understand because they seem so pointless ;-)
>  
>> I thank Milton for his explanation of the reason for the domain name application, and its origins in the deep differences between the GNSO and ALAC mission.