Re: [discuss] Unofficial minutes June 11 1999 Names Council Meeting

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Tue, Jun 29, 1999 at 07:22:11PM -0400, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jun 1999, Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> > 
> > > 4. Are your deliberations going to affect all
> > >     gTLDs, including GOV, MIL, EDU, ARPA, INT ?
> > >     "Other" TLDs such as AC, GG, IM, JE, UK ?
> > 
> > None of these are gTLDs, according to the commonly accepted 
> > definitions of "gTLD".  
> > 
> 
> Gov, mil, edu, int are indeed gTLDs; they are not "open" gTLDs,

From the "gTLD-MoU" definitions:

  d."Generic Top Level Domains" ("gTLDs") means the TLDs ".com",
  ".org", ".net" as defined in RFC 1591, and those TLDs established
  in or under the auspices of Signatories to this MoU;

RFC1591 used the term "generic" for gov, mil, edu, and int.  There
was a fair amount of discussion about the change in definition, back 
in the days of the IAHC, mainly because of the confusion with the 
term "international TLDs".  The generic meaning of "generic" is 
"not a ccTLD and without a restrictive charter of some sort".

The wide use of the terms "open" and "closed" is very recent,
promulgated by NSI, in an attempt to get com, net, and org considered
in the same competitive class as the various "open" ccTLDs.  Most
people didn't buy that subterfuge. 

(I might add that I tried to get the POC to change from the word 
"generic" to the word "open" some time ago, because the word 
"generic" brings to mind "generic brands" in the supermarket...)

However, the terminology is probably completely muddled by now.


> according to the commonly accepted defitition of gTLDs.  I am not certain
> about arpa .

.arpa is not a generic TLD, by any definition.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain