Re: IAHC Process

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

Rick H. Wesson allegedly said:
> 
> On Nov 23,  9:54pm, Kent Crispin wrote:
> > In
> > principal, different TLDs could use totally different mechanisms -- a
> > very low volume TLD with only a few registries could be synchronized
> > with email messages between them, for example.  Only in the case of
> > a very heavily used TLD like .com does the level of performance required
> > come even come close to your requirements.
> 
> IMHO A well defined  protocol should be defined and relied upon insted of
> a loosly defined e-mail process. If anythig this 'protocol' would enable
> all regestries to viewed by the regestrant through a simular interface.

OTOH, the primary point of opening up more TLDs and registries is to
foster competition.  My philosophy on this matter is to give
registries as much freedom to experiment with alternate presentation
as is consistent with keeping the internet going.  That is, it is one 
thing to "enable" a similar interface.  It is quite another to 
mandate it.  Customer interface is in fact one of the ways I think 
that registries should be allowed to differentiate.

The only real requirement from the point of view of the internet is
that the registries' DNS servers work correctly, and that their
customers whois information be available through (r)whois.  The only
real requirement for coordination is that it work.  If a suitable
email protocol can be developed for low-volume registries, that's
fine. 

> > Furthermore, there already is a database that comes very close to
> > meeting all your requirements -- DNS itself.  The Dynamic Update
> > extensions, with DNSSEC, have almost all the functionality required
> > to support shared TLDs.
> 
> DNSSEC extentions do not allow the management of (handles)
> contact data. Altough DNSSEC has some feature that my benifit
> iTLD regestries they don't provide the access to or management of
> meta data that is very important to ommercial regestries as
> in  billing.

Contact data and billing data are completely orthogonal to the
fundamental issue of synchronizing domain name allocation.  Contact
data needs to be available through a standard interface like whois. 
Use whatever database you want, and just put a frontend for whois on
it.  I see no need whatsoever to standardize billing information, and
in fact I think it would be a bad idea to do so.  As I said, the whole
point of opening up more TLDs was to increase competition.  Implicit
in that platform is the notion that there will be some variation in
what the

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
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