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Hiro shared that what led the RSSAC to develop RSSAC037 on the future governance of the RSS were three potential issues identified:

1. Lack of a mechanism for assuring the technical ability and service quality of the RSS and RSOs;
2. RSO financial sustainability especially when faced with growing traffic and security threats. Currently, each RSO covers all the cost for its own managed root DNS system and operations; and
3. Lack of a clear and standard governance structure for the entire RSS, leading to questions of service continuity should a RSO become unable to function.

RSS GWG

The RSS GWG was formed in November 2019, serving as the core of the community-driven process to discuss and develop a final RSS cooperation and governance model based on RSSAC037 by early 2022. RSS GWG’s representatives from APAC were Geoff Huston representing the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), Hanyu Yang for gTLD registries, and Hiro from the RSOs. 

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The RSS governance model aimed to serve three main stakeholders groups — the ICANN community, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)/IAB, and the RSOs. The model has five primary functions:

1. Strategy, Architecture and Policy Function (SAPF) — Plans for future structure and technology of the RSS, and defines Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This function might discuss topics such as the ideal number of RSOs, and whether the RSS should adopt new technologies.
2. Performance, Monitoring and Measurements Function (PMMF) — Measures and monitors each RSO’s SLAs.
3. Secretariat Function (SF) — The communication channel between the RSOs and the Internet community.
4. Designation and Removal Function (DRF) — Discusses procedures for designating new RSOs and/or removing underperforming RSOs.
5. Financial Function (FF) — Ensures sustainable financial provision to all RSOs, including reserving emergency funds and Research & Development (R&D) funds for new root DNS technologies. The FF would allow RSOs to request funding support to maintain their service and security level.

After discussing the governance model for a year, the GWG’s current draft was to propose a Public Root Services (PRS) entity as the RSS governance body, which could be an affiliate of ICANN like Public Technical Identifiers (PTI). With the PMMF, SF, and FF functions residing within it, the PRS would coordinate across all entities providing root zone resolution services, carry out SAPF-developed policies, arrange funding for RSOs, and enter into contractual agreements with them. The SAPF, however, would be a community-based group separate from the PRS, managing the strategy and architecture of the RSS. A Multistakeholder Review Panel that would look after the DRF would be formed on request by the PRS Board.

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