Re: A long strange trip

[David Collier-Brown <davecb@Canada.Sun.COM>]

Jim Dueltgen wrote:
> The entire draft is predicated on a faulty assumption.  The Internet top
> level domain space ceased to be a public trust the minute that NSI started
> charging for domain name "ownership."  

	The malfeasance of a contractor does not change the
	nature of the internet.  It mat be an indication of
	how bad things get if allowed to slip, however...

>                          If it's a pubilc trust then it needs
> to be funded by US Federal taxes or UN Sponsorship, neither of which is a
> viable option in my opinion. 

	I use something that is a public trust every day in
	my work: it's the X/Open spec for the Unix Operating
	System.  And I pay for copies.

	There is no reason to prohibit a non-profit or not-for-
	profit organization from charging fees: the classification
	was **created** so they could charge fees but not have
	reason to become a monopoly.  

	Professions, like the medical profession, go even farther:
	they are self-governing, with delegated legal powers from
	the state to safeguard a public trust, the body of
	medical knowlege and the techniques of employing it.
	For profit.

>                                                        The Internet
> is no longer a managed trust.  It is a vast interconnection of
> heterogeneous networks that all agree at some level on how to exchange
> information and has achieved sufficient consumer penetation to become
> reason enough for the private sector to pump money into its growth and
> sustainability. 

	I'm afraid you've just argued against your own point.
	The internet is viable because it reached critical mass
	on the strength of seed funding from dARPA and sucessfull
	multilateral agreements which created BITNET and CSNET,
	followed by a conscious funding of .EDU in the U.S. by
	the NSF.

	The commercial attempts to build genral purpose networks
	failed.  Only a few large private nets still exist, mostly
	for secure funds/business-data transfer.  Now the unsuccessfull
	businesses have come to the Internet..

	In my considered opinion, the popularity to business is 
	overstated.  We're still at the stage of commerce best
	described as ``medieval town fairs'', complete with cut-purses,
	people carrying ther wares on their backs and moneychangers
	weighing coins.  We have a long way to go before the net
	is supported by anyone other than it's user community.

>                      The I*s are absolutely vital to this growth and
> sustainability but they need to fundamentally change their mandate to
> reflect the current reality of the net.  "The public" is benefitting from
> the greatly increased business focus of the Internet of the last several
> years, far more than at any time in the past when it was "managed" for us.

	Enthusiasm and topicality isn't the same as support.

	Setting up a fruit stand  on the side of the highway and
	generating local traffic doesn't actually help the
	highway...  but it is a perfectly good, perfectly reasonable
	step.  After that you pave the end of your driveway, gravel
	a parking lot and put up a permanent building, while 
	conributing to highway widening and maintenance very
	indirectly by paying more *#%%# taxes on the improvements
	to your property.

	BTW, this could be compared to voluntarily paying a premium for
	improved access to your site to an ISP...
	indirectly by paying 


> Now is not the time to put the brakes on so that the I*s can stick to the
> letter of their original mandate.  You are not losing your power or your
> jobs, or selling out your original mandate in this new world, but your
> constituency has changed.  Your approach needs to reflect that.

	I'm sorry, this is quite misleading.  It has changed only
	in the sense that business has been added.  The users have
	not left.  The ISOC has a duty to them.  You do not. 
	Please do not suggest the ISOC abandon it's community, as
	this would, IMHO, lead to the internet going the same way as
	DSA and the private RSCS nets... into oblivion.

	Or, mor topically, the way of televiision, into becoming
	a ``great wasteland''.

> Q: What is driving the need for additional TLDs?  A: The commercial market.
	Malfeasance by a contractor who has turned a duty
	into a monopoly because they were not constrained to
	be a non-profit or not-for-profit company, and as a
	monopolist stated meddling in writing their oen laws.

> Who should decide what those new gTLDs should be?  The IAHC?  No, same
> answer as the first question.  If the IAHC presumes to dictate and regulate
> the market in the manner described in their Draft we are all in for a
> disaster or at best something so wonderfully consensusized as to be
> completely useless. 

	If it doesn't achieve consensus if will fail: do you really
	wisg competing .com domains, as proposed by John Palmer?
	Do you really think you can operate a business on main
	street if someone can name their street ``Main'' too? CAn
	you imagine explaining ``who has the real main street'' to
	your customers?  If you can't get a braod consensus, you've
	chosen fragmentation.  In a market for equivalent good, this
	is desirable.  In finding **any** goods, its a catastrophy.


> Besides, I can't think of any that wouldn't be better managed by a monopoly
> except for maybe .ISP ;-).

	Bah, humbug.  I **hate** monopolies.

--dave
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | Always do right. This will gratify some people
185 Ellerslie Ave.,   | astonish the rest.        -- Mark Twain
Willowdale, Ontario   | davecb@hobbes.ss.org, canada.sun.com
N2M 1Y3. 416-223-8968 | http://java.science.yorku.ca/~davecb