[council] Comments - MHSC Summary Opinion-/USG/DOC/NTIA/ICANN/DNSO/WG-Review

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

Title:

 /USG/DOC/NTIA/ICANN/DNSO/WG-Review
MHSC Summary opinion

Overview

As much as this has been dressed up, it can all be boiled down to a simple goal. This WG is intended to come up with answers that will fix the current fiasco that is the DNSO. The structure is weak. The foundation's bad, the entire structure threatens to collapse. I have witnessed one process hi-jacking after another. It has led to a foundation built on quicksand. My analysis reveals that the DNSO has only come to this juncture because everyone else has stopped playing with it. Two years ago, I stated that this is one probable result of the process hi-jacking and systematic disenfranchisement that created the DNSO. Such disenfranchisement is at the core of the reasons that the DNSO has no credibility. None with the ICANN BoD, the ccTLDs, or anywhere else. Some consider it nothing more than a political circus. A circus of no substance whatsoever. This is matched by the fact that the DNSO has not emitted anything remotely resembling substantive output, since its inception. Yet, we are asked, in five short weeks, during one of the biggest holidays of the year, to come up with a remedy, a fix, a curative, for the ailment of the DNSO. Moreover, we are asked to do this as a result of a collaborrative effort.

Introduction

Well, I can give you that curative agent, but it is a result of MHSC involvement in these efforts since the Green Paper. Although many have come out in support of these views, I do not pretend to color this as any sort of consensus or collaborrative opinion. I can state that this is the opinion of the Morgan Hill Software Company, Inc., for which I, as both the Managing Director and the Chairman of the Board, am authorized to speak. MHSC has participated in the Green Paper, White Paper, and the IFWP. We have commented on both DraftPostel3 and 4. We were a participant on the the drafting of the ORSC NewCo submission, in 1998, and the DNSO organization proposal put before the ICANN BoD in Berlin, 1999. After the ORSC dropped out of the process, MHSC continued its participation in DNSO/WG-B, DNSO/WG-C, the DNSO/GA, and finally DNSO/WG-Review. Yes, MHSC was also one of the protestors to the GIAC, in 1Q99, regarding the FAR violation of handing over the IANA contracts, without proper bid procedure, to the ICANN (currently pending). We have also been a long-term subscriber and contributor, to NSI's DOMAIN-POLICY list.

The Cure

For one thing, we can start by re-enfranchising those that ICANN/DNSO dis-enfranchised in the first place. Delete the primary tool for dis-enfranchisement ... the constituencies, and re-integrate those blocks back into the DNSO/GA. It is clear that we can neither agree on specific constituencies or that anyone has a clue on the process needed to create a constituency. Simply creating them by executive fiat, as the current constituencies are, is generally unacceptable and has not, in fact, been accepted. This includes all the wrangeling over Independent Domain Name Holders. There seems to be good agreement, in WG-Review, that the constituency model is not working.

 

A better, more inclusive, approach to the constituency model is to let the GA vote for ALL NC seats. No kowtowing to special interests here (TM or otherwise). Let blocks of voters form PACs, but each individual votes independently. For the DNSO, a voting member is one that has color of title to, at least one, domain name. Additional domain names do not garner any extra voting rights, however. Legally recognized corporate entities can vote along with anyone else.  But that is not enough. The DNSO must actually spend the resources to develop a scalable and secure voting/polling system, with full voter authentication. Either start with Joop's system, or talk to Stef and Ed Gerck (I believe that they are working on something).

 

Then you can, ever so politely, invite the inclusive root server operators back into the fold, rather than snubing them. Make this an inclusive club, in fact, rather than fiction. Help, rather than hinder, the ORSC and its efforts to eliminate TLD name space collisions. Empower them to do what the DNSO should have been doing all along.

 

Move all these damned mailing lists onto a news server and build a news server network, so that we can all talk sensibly, with some organization. You've got a Solaris box running DNSO.ORG, you have no excuse, INN is free-ware. These discussion groups tend to get mighty confusing and unwieldy. It doesn't scale. NewsGroups are a technology that are designed to deal with the volume of UseNet. No, we don't have to put it on UseNet. In fact, my recommendation is that we don't do that. ICANN/DNSO needs to form their own network for this. Feeds and servers can be acquired, the DNSO simply has to "want" to do this. There are plenty of us that can find the resources. It isn't as if we weren't tech-heavy.

 

Finally, start running a RootRegistry and build your own inclusive root-zone. Become the TLD names clearing-house that many of us always wanted the DNSO to be.

Attachements

I've included PDF files of previous submissions, for reference and review. Both are on file and available, in virtually any format you are likely to need, at http://www.dnso.net/library.htm. MHSC owns and operates DNSO.NET.

 

Thank you,

--
ROELAND M.J. MEYER
Managing Director
Morgan Hill Software Company, Inc.
TEL: +001 925 373 3954
FAX: +001 925 373 9781
http://www.mhsc.com
mailto: rmeyer@mhsc.com

dnso-tld.mhsc-position.pdf

dnso-orsc.proposal.pdf