RE: Postel's draft

[Donald Heath <heath@linus.isoc.org>]

Kent

Interesting comments.  They illustrate why the IAHC was formed.  I
should point out that Jon brought his proposal to the ISOC board of 
trustees which decided to proceed.  That was done with the proviso
that it be looked at from a business perspective.

In the process of doing that, and for many of the reasons you cite,
I believed the proposal had surfaced _many_ issues that needed
resolution before any consideration of implementing any form of
the proposal could be accomplished.

Enter the formation of the IAHC.  [Unfortunately, I used something
similar to the "ad hoc committee" mentiond in Jon's proposal, but
the intent of this committee (the IAHC) was (it's already been published
  -  no need to go into it again here).]

>From participating in and looking at the past debates on the proposal,
there was no consensus, from any community of interest.  I wanted
to broaden the reach and make very public, any final proposal before
proceeding  -  as was the intent of the ISOC BoT.

That's what we are doing.  At some point, I hope sooner than later,
the IAHC will put forth its consensus on the fundamental issues.
There will undoubtedly be debate, modifications would likely be
made, and we will finalize our conclusions.

It is then that implementation would take place, but it will likely
be something different from Jon's proposal.

Don 
----------
From: 	Kent Crispin[SMTP:kent@songbird.com]
Sent: 	Saturday, November 23, 1996 3:32 PM
To: 	Dave Crocker
Cc: 	postel@isi.edu; wolodkin@digitalink.com; iahc-discuss@iahc.org
Subject: 	Re: Postel's draft

Dave Crocker allegedly said:
> 
> At 09:07 AM -0800 11/22/96, Jon Postel wrote:
> >Admitting to a small bias in the matter:
> >	Do what the "postel draft" says to do.
> 
> 	I'm about to make a very careful request and will preface it with
> another request, and that is that you read my careful request carefully:
> 
> 	The Postel Draft has been around for quite awhile and has been
> discussed quite a bit.  I'm not looking to rehash, re-open, or re-explore
> the fine-grained details of its pluses and minuses.
> 
> 	I WOULD, however, like to get terse, direct, simple statements
> about its perceived benefits and detriments.  I think it will help the
> committee to get an aggregated view of the proposal's standing among the
> Internet community.

Benefits:

1) It exists.

2) Describes some of the issues clearly.

Detriments

1) It was developed in a procedurally flawed way -- unfortunately, it
is my opinion that the "DNS terrorists" are essentially correct when
they state that the process by which it was developed has been
seriously flawed.  No WG was formed.  Jon never actively participated
in the mailing lists supposedly discussing it.  Even to an outsider 
like me who is very supportive, it does look like an "Old Boy 
Network" kind of thing.  Even more worrisome, IMO, regardless of the 
noxious noise level in the mailing lists, there *were* important 
insights that came up, and they are not reflected in the draft.

2) In particular, there is now widespread sentiment favoring the idea
of shared registries.  Despite some lip service at the beginning, the
Postel draft essentially ignores the idea:
against it:

      Summary: A new registry gets up to three new iTLDs for exclusive
          management for a period of up to five years; if the registry
          chooses it may establish a joint management of one or more of its
          iTLDs with other registries.  All registries will be reviewed
          after five years, it is very likely that registries that provide
          good services will be rechartered. [6.1]

and Jon later substitutes his own opinion for any objective review of 
the issue:

         Is there a practical way to share a single domain name between
         competing registries?  There are technical solutions to this
         problem.  But are there are manageable administrative
         arrangements for this situation.  I am not convinced there are.
	 [A.1.2]

Any draft that purported to deal with the TLD issue would necessarily
have to deal seriously and at length with the idea of shared TLDs.  
Jon's draft does not.


3) Furthermore, while the draft superficially seems quite complete 
and detailed, IMO this is more a reflection of Jon's considerable skills 
as a technical writer than it is a reflection of complete coverage.   
In reality there are many, many problem areas that are glibly pasted 
over.  (I know you didn't want to rehash the details, but just as a 
single convenient example -- in the quote above it states that an 
that a registry can manage three iTLDs.  This completely neglects the 
obvious ploy of a shadow company owning 10 registries.)

4) Because of this superficial completeness, the IAHC may be fooled in
to thinking that most of their work has been done for them if they
"just follow the Postel draft".  Unfortunately, the really hard
administrative issues are really left undone -- for example, working
out the details of the "appeals process" is a major job (and,
incidentally, just as difficult as it would be to work out an appeals
process for conflicts between shared registries.)

5) Finally, the matter of legal liability is probably the single most
important problem in this whole issue, and the draft does not explore
it to the depth that is required. 

I don't mean this to be a criticism of Jon.  I respect him 
tremendously, and his talents and abilities need no defense.  My 
impression is that he got sick of the quagmire of petty bickering and
caustic legal threats, and, realizing that the problems really are 
enormous, passed the work off onto the IAHC as gracefully and quickly 
as he could.

But that leaves the IAHC with a *very* large job.

> 	The sorts of factors being commented on might include:
> administrative ease or overhead, legal and intellectual property adequacy
> or lack, operations, human factors, social, ...
> 
> 	But remember:  Terse, folks.  A few words.  2 lines at the most.
> It's all been said before so no one needs to elaborate yet-again.

I'm sorry, I have not been able to keep it that short.  But I think
your basic premise is flawed -- there really *hasn't* been that much
discussion of the Postel draft, because (IMO) the massive silence from
Jon caused most people (certainly me) to think that their comments
were a waste of time. 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B6 04 CC 30 9E DE CD FE  6A 04 90 BB 26 77 4A 5E