Re: The view from my window

[durrell@innocence.com (Bryant Durrell)]

Gary Morrell writes:
> As an aside, why hasn't my first questions been answered?
> 1. How did these folks get chosen?
> 2. Why wasn't there a "lottery" to be included in this committee?

OK, time for the bi-monthly observation about how the IANA works...

The IANA has little to no legal authority over the root namespace; the
same goes for the ISOC and every other organization that selected
people to be on the IAHC.  They do have the support of most of the
Internet, for various and sundry reasons.  I personally support and
respect the IANA because Jon Postel has done a good job so far and I
believe it's important to have a coherent policy.  Other people support
the IANA insofar as they accept the cache file that ships with BIND.
In the end, it is a matter of individual choice.

It is my personal belief that there are no rights when it comes to a
consensus-based anarchy.  The IANA is not attempting to force anyone to
do anything their way.  Various and sundry people associated with the
current processes *are* giving warnings about what they think will
happen if the IANA is ignored.  This isn't force, this is reason, and I
see no compelling reason to argue that they be barred from presenting
their side of the argument.  Since there is no force, I do not feel
that anyone has the right to force the IANA to make decisions in a
particular way; it would be like saying you have the right to force me
to decide to use your product so that you can make a profit.

If you disagree with what the IANA says, you *do* have the right to
lobby for people to make different decisions with regard to their
nameservers.  This may or may not work.  For a while last summer, Karl
Denninger made a lot of claims about major computer vendors deciding
to use the Alternic servers, but that never panned out, nor did the
promised wave of media attention.  On the other hand, neither Karl or
the Alternic are very good at media manipulation.

I think this will be an interesting six months.  I expected the IAHC
to choose a much more concilatory path.  We'll see what happens.

-- 
Bryant Durrell (sysadmin, cynic, coyote) | "well, it seems doable so we should
durrell@innocence.com / durrell@bofh.net |  do it.  if we can't then we should
http://www.innocence.com/~durrell        |  get no biscuits."  -- tim@meer.net