Re: Notes (fwd)

[chris@hal.iodesign.com (Christopher Ambler)]

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

I am speaking of Bill's statements to us regarding going operational.

>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. 

That is what his notes say. Again, what he said at the time is different.

>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).  

According to Don Heath, the IAHC is *not* this ad-hoc working group.

>Fraud implies that commercial transactions are involved.

Not necessarilly, but I need not discuss law with you, as neither of
us are lawyers. All I know is what our council says, which is good
enough for me.

>   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.

Ah, then Bill Manning *is* a member of IANA. Thank you.

>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.

I suppose we'll have to see what the IAHC does, then.

>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 now we get back to that $1000 check that Bill accepted.

>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?".

I frequently leave meeting rooms to confer with partners and employees
who are not in a meeting. Bill said that Jon was too busy to join us,
but often went to get clarification on points. It was our understanding
that he had such authority. You are, however, making many assumptions
about a meeting which you did NOT attend.

At the meeting, Bill asked me to provide him with a Perl script that
would be used to count the number of SLDs that a registry had, in
order to determine what the 2% yearly fee should be. Why did he ask 
me to do this if he were not working on it for IANA? You've shown that 
he was a member of IANA at the time as well. It was the intention of
IANA, at the time, to implement the Postel draft as an RFC and move
on from there. Only the controversy of the situation prompted them
to give it to ISOC, who formed their own committee (IAHC) which
leads us to the current situation. IANA, in anticipation of the
Postel draft becoming RFC, gave us the go-ahead to go active with
operational testing. It's all rather clear, I'm afraid, regardless
of your curious passion on the subject.

>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.

And you will take your ball and go home. Please, Michael, stop acting
like a 5-year-old. Doing that would be exactly what AlterNIC is doing
now, would it not? People upset at the current state of affairs will
shun them and do their own thing. You seem to want your cake and eat
it too.

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

And you seem to have a personal vendetta against a company that has set
up a registry in good faith after confering with the authority at the
time. All we did is what IANA told us we could do. Nothing more, nothing
less. If this comes down to a question in a court, then so be it. 
Otherwise, your constant attacks on the facts as they've been shown
is beginning to actually anger me - before they do too much, I will
kindly beg out of this conversation. I've said all I have to say on
this issue, please feel free to have the last word and we'll move on.
Hopefully, this issue won't need to be decided by a judge.

--
Christopher Ambler
President, Image Online Design, Inc.