Re: Hyperbole Fervor Distorts Serious Reporting and Discussion

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

John and all,

John Charles Broomfield wrote:
> 
> Jay Fenello said:
> > Dave,
> >
> > For many months, IAHC supporters have been making statements like:
> >
> > At 05:12 PM 4/12/97 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
> > >     IANA dictates the contents of the root servers.  The operators of
> > >the root servers follow IANA dictates and have stated they will follow IANA
> > >in this matter.
> >
> > You have just admitted in a private posting (forgive me, *NOT*
> > private ;-) that the U.S. Government and Network Solutions have
> > the ability to prevent your seven new gTLDs from being entered
> > in the root.
> (snip)
> > Regards,
> > Jay Fenello
> > President, Iperdome, Inc.
> > 404-250-3242  http://www.iperdome.com
> 
> I don't think it is like that at all. NSI & the U.S. Government have the
> ability to make IANA root updates all the more painful, which by no means
> contradicts the statement of where the root content comes from. Just look at
> its whole history. When new (ISO) TLDs are to come into existance, who do
> the future admin contacts address themselves to? If you hadn't by now found
> out, they DON'T send a message to NSI or the U.S. gov, they send a message
> to IANA.

  Correct.  But you leave out a very important step.  That being that
the IANA than makes the request to NSI to add those TLD's.

> If they want any substancial modifications to their entry, again it
> gets sent to IANA. What's more, if they send these modifications to the
> standard "hostmaster@internic.net" it gets sent on to IANA. So, IANA is
> making the decision on what goes in or not the roots. After they have made
> this decision, they just comunicate it to NSI so that NSI *PROPAGATES* this
> information.

  And makes the request for the acctual addition of any TLD.  This is
a important point here John.  Isn't it?

> The (IANA sanctioned) root server operators have ALWAYS stated that they
> will follow IANA directives, and I challenge you to produce any eveidence to
> the contrary.
> Up to now, they have always been taking this information through NSI, who
> have up to now continued to cleanly serve the information that IANA hands
> it.
> This could somehow be seen as a hierarchical structure, where IANA
> creates/modifies and NSI distributes.
> Obviously should NSI decide NOT to distribute, it would mess things up
> (let's imagine NSI going on strike for example...). This does not mean that
> NSI controls, rather that it has SOME power (until or unless it decides to
> exercise that power). In this event, there are many different possible
> courses of action. From my point of view the most obvious would be to find
> an alternative channel of distribution and cut NSI out of the loop.

  This method may indeed be one that would be considered.  But with NSI
in physical control of the ROOTs, they could surmise this occurance,
most
likely already have, and be prepaired for it.

> DNS and most of internet in general works on the basis of cooperation. When
> someone decides to *force* something into being, if the rest of the internet
> is not happy with that, the "forcer" just gets cut out of the loop or
> ignored. 

  Yes to a great degree this is true.  And that being the case one
could surmise thet the gTLD-MoU recomendations for their 7 new 
gTLD's is a example of force as well.

> So, just as a practical experiment, once the new gTLDs get rolling,
> if they stay visible, I would presume that to be a good enough proof of
> general approval. On the other hand, try measuring how much global approval
> the alternatives have at this point (eDNS, uDNS, alternic an the rest of the
> bunch).

  Exactly right I think as well.  The converse would be also true
for those gTLD's or TLD's that other existing registries 
(eDNS, uDNS, alternic an the rest of the bunch), as you put it
might wish to suggest and already have.  
> 
> Yours, John Broomfield.

Regards,
-- 
Jeffrey A. Williams
DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java Development Eng.
Information Eng. Group. IEG. INC. (Soon to be INEG. INC) Stay tunned! 
Phone :913-294-2375 (v-office)
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com

Wisdom:   "One who knows others is wise,
           one who knows himself is enlightened."
           Lao Tzu