Re: Notes (fwd)

["Leo Smith" <barter@ntplx.net>]

Michael Dillon wrote to Chris Ambler:
:    Postel's plan proposed exclusive registries because he wrongly
:    believed that it would be too complicated to have shared TLD's. It
:    is understandable that he would make this wrong assumption since
:    his expertise is as a high-speed networking researcher and not as
:    an implementor of commercial databases. Of course, this is the
:    whole purpose of a draft, to get assumptions down on paper so
:    that people can either agree with them or show how they are faulty.
:    And now that the TLD issue has moved to a committee with members
:    who have some experience on implementing database systems it 
:    appears that exclusive monopoly control of a TLD is out of the 
:    question.

As you suggest in your message to Chris: "the whole purpose of a draft (is)
to get assumptions down on paper so that people can either agree with them
or show how they are faulty." I would like to suggest that the same apply
to IAHC and its draft in which "shared" gTLDs were endorsed. In the same
way that postel may not have had the expertise to judge the technical
aspects of implementing a database system, it may, or may not, be the case
that professional expertise is lacking in IAHC on the marketing aspects of
a shared TLD by registries financed with private stockholder investments,
and whether a shared TLD system needs an Altuistic non-profit based system
with a user tax to support costs. Capital investment from private
stockholders will not be forthcoming if there is not an exclusive license,
IMO.
----------
: From: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>
: To: iahc-discuss@iahc.org
: Subject: Re: Notes (fwd)
: Date: Wednesday, January 01, 1997 7:15 PM
: 
: On Wed, 1 Jan 1997, Christopher Ambler wrote:
: 
: > Okay, so we have some messages from Bill Manning and the notes from
: > the meeting. What we don't have is a tape of the meeting. In the
: > absense of that, we have many witnesses. I fail to see the relevance
: > here.
: 
: Because his public statements have more weight, IMHO, than your personal
: account of a meeting. Bill also stated publicly that he was hosting
: a meeting "In the IETF tradition...". This tradition is that face-to-face
: meetings are held to discuss issues but never to make any decisions.
: 
: > At the risk of being repetative (though there seems little recourse):
: > The point is simple, and I'll state it once again. Image Online Design
: > asked Bill Manning, as a representative of IANA, if we could go ahead
: > with our .web registry as operational testing while we waited for the
: > postel draft to be finished and approved. We were told yes.
: 
: As you can see, Bill said the same thing in somewhat more detail in 
: a public message on the newdom list which I also posted here. Note the
: emphasis on "experimental". 
: 
: The fact is that your commercial plans to operate a private brand DNS
: registry for the .WEB domain appear to be screwed. You jumped to the
wrong
: conclusions when reading Jon Postel's draft proposal.
: 
: 1. You failed to understand that a "draft" proposal is a discussion
:    document that attempts to nail down a perceived consensus. It is not
:    an edict from on high and is not something to use as the basis
:    for a business plan.
: 
: 2. Postel's plan proposed exclusive registries because he wrongly
:    believed that it would be too complicated to have shared TLD's. It
:    is understandable that he would make this wrong assumption since
:    his expertise is as a high-speed networking researcher and not as
:    an implementor of commercial databases. Of course, this is the
:    whole purpose of a draft, to get assumptions down on paper so
:    that people can either agree with them or show how they are faulty.
:    And now that the TLD issue has moved to a committee with members
:    who have some experience on implementing database systems it 
:    appears that exclusive monopoly control of a TLD is out of the 
:    question.
: 
: 3. You also failed to understand the nature of IANA and from your
:    statement above where you claim that Bill Manning is a
"representative"
:    of IANA, it appears you still misunderstand. IANA is not an
:    organization and thus it has no representatives. IANA is not
:    a governmental department and thus it has no representatives. IANA
:    is a necessary activity in a shared network to ensure that
:    names and numbers that must be globally unique are properly
:    registered and known to all. The people who carry out this function,
:    Joyce Reynolds and Jon Postel, have full-time jobs as researchers
:    at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences
:    Institute. This alone should be enough to indicate that IANA is
:    not some high authority that grants commercial business franchises.
: 
: 4. Even if monopoly registries had been created, the business case for
:    making money as a registry was very slim. The windfall profits
:    that fell into NSI's lap happened because of specific historical
:    circumstances and no other registry could hope to match that
situation.
:    You are chasing a shadow here. Under the system that is likely to
:    evolve in the next few months, it will only be feasible for ISP's,
:    and other Internet related business, to act as registrars as a
sideline
:    to their main business. Just like a real rainbow, there is no pot of
:    gold to be found at the end of this process.
: 
: Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP
Consulting
: Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
: http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail:
michael@memra.com
: 
: