Thanks, Horacio and Milton.

On 7/12/2012 9:47 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

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That FOSS expertise, we have in abundance. We lacked the USD 185,000
to be risked in the process (just to get the feet through the door).
The process was not viable for a non-commercial TLD, specially one in
the developing economies.

...And how many of these people can afford to bet $185,000? And folks here are fretting about why the program didn't attract scads of developing countries applicants! What a fantasy world they must live in! I know that you, Horacio, have been in the ICANN environment almost from its inception and even you didn't apply. One can only imagine how unrealistic it is to expect complete novices from developing countries to apply.

The idea shows how disconnected from economic and operational reality some of our "policymakers" are.

Bottom line: I know this is the noncommercial constituency but noncommercial organizations are not exempt from some basic business-oriented realities, such as: - if you tell the world for 3-4 years that the unrefundable application fee is $185,000 and then, a few months before, say, "well, maybe not..." don't expect a lot of applications - political uncertainty raises costs to killer levels - the more regulations and policies you impose on operations the more expensive you make it and thus the more you limit access...

--
Norbert Klein
Phnom Penh/Cambodia
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http://www.thinking21.org