Your "simple" question required more than 800 words. ;-)

 

The simple answer to "can it be done" is "certainly". Open source methodologies have been successfully extended well beyond software development into what is sometimes now known as "crowdsouring", but has the opportunity to be far more nuanced and highly focused.

While a fuller answer will take time, my greatest concern about evolving governance are -- no surprise -- the obstacles placed by those with power to lose in such an evolution. We see that coming from governments and legacy regulators, with WCIT as a very public example and the "wakening" of ICANN's GAC as something closer to home.

Now, as people here know I am not involved with IGF or, in general, governance outside ICANN. This will probably change now that I have taken on a role as a founder and initial president of the newly-minted Canada chapter of ISOC. Given what I said in the 10-month-old email from me that you quoted, IMO the creation of many hundreds of new vanity-driven TLDs is not going to have a major impact on the evolution of the Internet; hence my personal interest to get more involved at a different level in which I am more comfortable (the focus of the ISOC chapter will be more on national Canadian policy than international based on a survey of members so far).

I'm still learning. And I suspect I may not have a satisfactory answer until I have a clearer picture of the landscape, at least from my vantage. Others who have been at this longer may have more to say.

- Evan

PS: Eventually ISOC Canada will likely be applying for membership in NCSG. But at this point it's not sufficiently cooked.