Re: [council] Discussion draft on unique, authoritative root

["Milton Mueller" <mueller@syr.edu>]

Stuart:
The Names Council has created a committee to begin
exploration of policy toward multiple roots.
We have prepared an initial briefing paper that 
attempts to outline some of the technical and economic issues. 

http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010528.NC-root-briefing-MM.pdf 

We will begin discussion of this in Stockholm.

I see in your "Discussion Draft" and your message 
several references to "established policy."
Unfortunately, there is no "established policy" for the problems we are considering. New.net did not
exist when the White Paper was drafted. Nor did
the possibility of supporting internationalized domain
names through alternate roots. And of course ICANN's 
Board had not yet selected a TLD that conflicted with 
one claimed by an alternate registry. 

As you know, in the ICANN "community" policy decisions 
regarding the DNS are initiated by the DNSO. It is 
inappropriate, I'm sure you agree, for staff or 
management to purport to tell us what the policy is 
before we have concluded our own process. 

Indeed, a central theme of your Discussion Draft is 
that ICANN's authority to manage the root comes from its accountability to the community through policy-making organs such as the DNSO. I would encourage you to make good on that claim and show a litle faith in that community. In other words, let us do our job.  

Of course, I welcome continued dialogue with you,
the IAB, and other interested parties on how you think
these issues should be handled. 

--Milton Mueller