Re: Notes (fwd)

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

On Wed, 1 Jan 1997, Christopher Ambler wrote:

> Again, what bill has said publically is irrelevant to what he said
> in the ISI offices on 31 July. Many people say one thing, and later,
> changing their mind, say another publically. We have one of those 
> situations right here.

Not so. Bill's public statement was made two days before he announced
that people could meet at ISI's offices.

> out. Notice that the notes that Mr. Manning posted include, as the
> first item, the position that prior use would be a major factor
> in determining awards of TLDs.

Not so. I quote from Bill's notes:

>     First, it was recommended that a set of criteria be established at
>     each ad-hoc committee may utilize to evaluate applications.  We think
>     that these criteria should include, at a minimum, these items: 
> 
>             Prior Use - Has the requestor made good faith efforts
>                     to establish working service?  This is almost
>                     identical to the current requirement to have
>                     working nameservers. 

It does not say that prior use will be a major criteria and it does not
say that prior use will be a criteria at all. It merely says that the
individuals who happened to be at that meeting managed to agree that prior
use *SHOULD* be a criteria. 

> Then why was Bill constantly excusing himself to confer with Jon
> Postel throughout the meeting? If IANA is simply Mr. Postel, then
> Bill Manning represented himself as the representative of Mr. Postel
> when speaking to me about our registry. Why was Bill Manning taking
> points on the draft for revision? Why did Bill Manning tell us that
> he was working on the draft with Jon Postel?

First, IANA is not simply Jon Postel. Joyce Reynolds and Jon Postel are
the two individuals who are responsible for IANA activities. And in the
middle of July 1996, Nehal Bhau and Bill Manning were also working
part-time on IANA activities. But none of this means that their draft 
document had any sort of official standing. IANA simply does not have the
power to ram through whatever changes it wants to see in the domain name
registry system. That's why there was a draft. That's why there was
discussion. That's why Jon Postel referred people to the NEWDOM mailing
list. That's why his draft included this section:

   5.4. The ad hoc working group, for developing procedures and deciding
      creation of new iTLDs and chartering of registries, consist of
      seven members appointed by the IANA (3), the IETF (2), and the
      ISOC (2).  

Note that IANA doesn't make all the decisions. It sets up a process
whereby a committee, in consultation with the Internet community, makes
the final decisions.

> Your other two points are relevant to the Postel draft directly, which
> I have stated is irrespective to the problem at hand. The problem, then,
> is that Bill Manning represented himself as an IANA member at that time
> and made certain statements of direction to us. If he was a member of
> IANA, then we have witnesses to that fact. If, on the other hand, he
> was not, then Bill Manning has defrauded us. Perhaps Bill might like
> to comment upon this?

Fraud implies that commercial transactions are involved. IANA doesn't do
commercial transactions. As for Bill's status, this is What Jon Postel
said on July 16th

   The IANA is a small "level of effort" task using several people part
   time.  The total of the effort adds up to the equivalent about 1.5 full
   time staff.  The individuals currently involved are Jon Postel, Joyce
   K. Reynolds, Nehal Bhau, and Bill Manning.

> Whichever it is will be very irrelevant, however, should the IAHC
> implement a policy in which we are satasfied that there is reasonable
> compromise under which we participate. This is not too much to ask.

I think this is too much too ask. The *INTERNATIONAL* Ad Hoc Committee
really can't pay much concern to the wishes and desires of a single
American company whose representative on this mailing list continues to
twist people's words and misrepresent people's actions. If IO Design were
to be singled out for special treatment the only treatment that IAHC could
possibly accept would be to bar IO Design from participating in the
initial stages of setting up the gTLD registry.

Quite frankly, if you stood up in a court of law and said "We made a deal
with Bill" the first thing the judge is going to ask is "Was there any
consideration exchanged, i.e. did money change hands?". Without money
changing hands there is no legally binding contract in all the
countries whose legal systems descend from English common law. And the
second thing the judge will ask is "Did Bill have the authority to make
binding agreements?". Obviously, by your own words, you knew that Bill had
no such authority. If you claim otherwise in court the judge will say
something like: "Mr. Ambler, did it never occur to you that if Mr. Manning
had to frequently leave the room to consult with someone else, perhaps
Mr. Manning did not have the authority to make any deals with you?".

And in the end, if you win your case in spite of all that, then the
international Internet community will simply shun IANA and set up some new
authority to which it gives the duties and responsibilities of registering
important unique network names and numbers.

You are in a lose-lose situation here. There are dozens of more lucrative
Internet money-making ventures you could be involved in.

Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael@memra.com