Re: [ga-roots] response to response to response

["NameCritic" <watch-dog@inreach.com>]

"if you are really concerned about eliminating collisions" That is a very
big IF Milton when posting it to People like Kent that think only technical
conclusions matter. Social and Political concerns carry little weight
because the less knowledge one has in an area the less they will focus on
it.

The technical problems have been exaggerated as impossible to overcome
because they don't have an interest in solving them. It's a good thing
Edison and others didn't think that way.

Social and Political concerns take precedence. The end user takes precedence
over all other concerns. Solving the problems that arise due to serving the
consumer has been the job of all commercial interests throughout history. If
you are to be successful you have to operste from the bottom up. What are
the needs of the users? What do they want?

Figuring that out is half the battle. Once you know what they want, you have
to figure out how to deliver what they want. You figure that out and you win
the game.

According to the thinking presented in Kent's and other's posts to these
list as well as the actions of the existing constituencies and the ICANN
BoD, they believe the reverse to be true.

They believe they are supposed to decide what the product will be and the
end user just has to accept it. Excellent business plan you propose for the
Internet Kent.

As you have pointed out before, Kent, my lack of knowledge about the
technical aspects of the Internet do not qualify me to propose the changes
needed there. But now I have to let you in on something, that it seems only
you don't realize. As far as the social, political, and consumer issues
involved here you are not qualified to propose those changes.

I am not pointing to any business enterprise you have been involved in. My
evidence for this conclusion is included in the draft you wrote and in
almost every post you write to these lists.

Your concerns have never reflected what the consumers want and have never
reflected that you really care what they want. You are not alone in this.
Louis Touton and others are ones that fit this same description.

I will reiterate a point I made before and one that Milton put even better
than I. ICANN is a small CALIFORNIA Nonprofit organization with a US
government contract. There are many Nonprofits with US Government contracts.
The others just don't try to rule the world. They try to fulfill their
purpose. The current ICANN BoD and others that sit on the Names Council keep
reminding me of Pinky and the Brain.

Imagine ICANN playing the part of the brain and the Names Council playing
the part of Pinky. What are we going to do next Brain? Why, what we always
do Pinky . . . We're going to take over the world!


Chris McElroy aka NameCritic

----- Original Message -----
From: "Milton Mueller" <mueller@syr.edu>
To: <ga-roots@dnso.org>
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2001 9:40 PM
Subject: Re: [ga-roots] response to response to response


> Mueller to Crispin:
>
> OK. You've conceded that one of your premises is
> self-contradictory.
>
> But you believe that its self-contradictory nature
> somehow proves your conclusion that ICANN "cannot"
> approve multiple roots. (Do you mean "should not?")
>
> I think you are really confused, Kent.
>
> My point was simple, and you failed to deal with it.
> If ICANN "approves" alternate roots, it would also
> coordinate with them. And if it coordinates with them,
> it would also eliminate the name collisions
> that you contend would do so much harm.
>
> Let's make it even more concrete & simple,
> for your sake.
>
> There is an alternate root called Name.space, supporting 500-or so generic
TLDs.
> Let's say ICANN "approves" of Name.space. It would
> be a simple matter for this "approval" to consist
> of either entering those TLDs into its root zone, or
> some kind of arms-length agreement not to assign TLDs
> that conflicted with name.space's TLDs.
>
> No way can you say ICANN "cannot" do this. It can,
> and it might even be good policy.
>
> If ICANN does NOT engage in this coordination, in what
> sense has it "approved" those other roots? If there is
> no coordination, it is competing and conflicting with,
> not approving, those TLDs. So your whole premise, that
> ICANN approval of alternate roots would produce
> uncontrolled collisions, is refuted.
>
> As for the economics of standards competition, I am
> glad to see that you have read one chapter of one
> book about it. That's a good start.
>
> Your grasp of network externalities is superficial,
> however, and it's not wise to run around making
> sweeping policy recommendations in a sensitive area
> with so little knowledge. Any more than I would run
> around proposing modifications to the DNS protocol or
> theBIND software. I'm not a programmer. You're not
> a policy analyst or economist.
>
> Network externalities have varing levels of critical
> mass, and the "positive feedback" varying levels of
> strength, therefore some standards competitions
> converge and others don't. With computer games, for
> example, universal connectivity provides little added
> value to the consumer of a game. One can enjoy a
> computer game regardless of whether everyone else
> in the world uses the same format. The same is true
> of 2nd-gen mobile telephones, where the market is
> predominantly regional or national, and hence the
> standards have fragmented on regional grounds.
>
> (BTW, do you think SONY should proclaim itself the
> only true game standard, and denounce all others
> as "harmful"? Which mobile standard do you want
> the FTC to ban? GSM or CDMA?)
>
> With DNS, connectivity is the whole point of the
> service. Any generic TLD that is incompatible with
> a portion of the Internet is likely to be
> unattractive to consumers AND suppliers.
>
> This is why your second assumption is wrong. People
> just won't buy domain names that don't reach most
> of the Internet. Your scenario of recurring, perpetual competition among
three or four vendors competing to control the same name is ludicrous.
> Smart service providers won't offer highly
> conflicted names, most consumers won't buy them,
> and ISPs won't support them. They will converge, or
> die. Domain names have no value otherwise. You
> can't play with them, or hang them on your wall.
>
> In a multiple-root environment, there might be
> peripheral, isolated areas of confict. But as soon as
> money is involved, there is every incentive to
> coordinate and little if any incentive to conflict.
>
> And that, my friend, is what I meant about "the
> behavior of the alternate root" people, a comment
> you completely misunderstood. I am aware that there
> are a lot of squabbles among them. Most of them are trying to work out
conflicts, a few are not. Guess which ones are more successful? How many
> egistrations has Joe Baptista sold? Do you feel
> threatened by his operation?
>
> Now you are right that linguistic differences in the transition to
internationalized domain names poses
> an obstacle to convergence. The situation could be
> analogous to the 2nd-gen mobile phone market, with
> regional blocs forming around linguistic groupings.
>
> But you seem to be utterly oblivious to the policy
> issues this poses. ICANN cannot stop the government
> of the Peoples Republic of China from forming an
> alternate root. If the PRC or some other autonomous
> actor thinks it is in their interest to do so, they
> will do so. ICANN can proclaim that it is the "one
> true root" and denounce all others as imposters and
> "harmful" until it is blue in the face and it won't
> matter.
>
> So if you are really concerned about eliminating
> collisions, one would think you would be more open
> to the notion of exploring ways for multiple roots
> to coordinate.
>
> >>> Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> 05/28/01 21:46 PM >>>
> Response to Mueller's:
> > Analysis of the Crispin Internet-draft.
>
> Unfortunately, Mueller apparently did not actually read the draft,
> so it is hard to respond.  However, to correct a couple of inaccuracies:
>
> > The draft is based on two assumptions, both easily questioned.
> >
> > One: "I implicitly postulate that multiple roots exist and are in heavy
> > use and that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
> > (ICANN) has somehow approved of them."
> >
> > That assumption is self-contradictory.
>
> The draft is not based on this assumption -- quite the contrary.  In
> fact, that there is a contradiction in that assumption is a FUNDAMENTAL
> POINT of the draft.  That is, the contradiction is explicitly recognized
> in the draft, and indeed, that contradiction leads to the fundamental
> conclusion: ICANN *cannot* approve multiple roots.  Indeed, as a matter
> of policy, ICANN must do everything it can to discourage them, which
> implies that ICANN must never give any credence to TLDs that were
> deeloped through alternate roots, since such acknowledgement would
> simply encourage the proliferation of alternate roots and alternated
> TLDs.
>
> [...]
>
> > Two: he assumes that multiple roots would not converge on a coordinated
> > zone file.  In other words, his very definition of a "multiple root
> > regime" assumes that registries, Internet service providers, and
> > consumers will heedlessly create and buy conflicting names in a
> > fragmented name space.
> >
> > That assumption is inconsistent with what we know about the the
> > economics of standards competition, and for the most part is
> > contradicted by the current behavior of alternate root operators.
>
> Both clauses above are simply incorrect.
>
> 1) In fact, the economics of standards competition provides an array of
> examples of non-convergence, and I discuss this in the paper.  Shapiro
> and Varian, in their chapter "Waging a Standards War", give several
> examples: Nintendo vs Sony in the game console market have evolved to a
> duopoly; the multiple competing standards for digital phones, and HDTV
> are other examples, and they explicitly discuss the *fact* that
> standards competition may not lead to convergence.  Given that Mueller
> is supposed to have some expertise in this area, his inaccuracy on this
> point is especially egregious.
>
> There is no way to predict with certainty what might happen in a large
> scale standards war over root zones, and indeed (as I mention in the
> paper) political or cultural factors may completely overshadow any
> economic considerations.
>
> 2) The current behavior of the alternate root operators, in fact, is a
> clear indication of precisely the opposite of what Mueller claims.  The
> history of the alternate root movement is notable for the strife --
> Richard Sexton's refusal to cooperate with name.space is a recent
> example, and an even more recent example is illustrated by this
> fragment from an email on the ORSC list, in an exchange between Joe
Baptista,
> Einar Stefferud, and Jefsy Morfin:
>
> > From: JoeBaptista <baptista@pccf.net>
> > Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 14:19:40 -0400
> > To: domain-policy@open-rsc.org
> > Cc: admin@tlda.org
> > Subject: Re: [ORSC.DOMAIN-POLICY] Re: [TLDA.ADMIN] Fwd: Re: [ORSC.TECH]
> >   does the ORSC want to   end up in a court of law   with little ol
> >   me???
> > Reply-To: domain-policy@open-rsc.org
> >
> > At 01:01 AM 1/1/70 -0700, you wrote:
> > >Hello Jefsey --  ORSC is not removing Dr. Joe's TLDs from our ORSC
> > root!
> > >
> > >My problem with Dr. Joe is that he threatened me (and ORSC) on public
> > >lists, with court involvement, without any effort to contact me (or
ORSC)
> > >in private
> > >to discuss his problems.
> >
> > This is completely untrue.  And I can produce documentation to that
> > effect.  You however were not contacted - richard sexton was contacted.
I
> > spent several days just trying to get the orsc to remove the original
pccf
> > roots when diebold incorporated went wacko and disconnected the pccf
arpa
> > roots.  I was ignored.  I eventually just gave up and sexton only change
d
> > the root file when the new diebold arpas were ready for root service.
The
> > same situation appled to the SETDNS program.  In fact there are public
> > archives on the netsol domain-policy list in which i made it clear the
pccf
> > arpas should be removed and sexton said i was over reacting.
> >
> > So you see steff - i have extensive documentation that i made every
attempt
> > to reduce the orsc's and diebold liability to us - and we were ignored.
> >
> > As for your claim that I threatened you with court involvment - well
thats
> > nonsense.
>
> ...and so on.  One can't get a very good feeling for the stability
> offered by these root zone operators.
>
> new.net is using TLD names that collide with prior "claims".  Examples
> of *current* name collisions can be multiplied easily.
>
> In fact, the history of the alternate root community is notable for
> its lack of cooperation -- indeed, it has been notable for bitter
> strife for its entire existence.
>
> [...]
>
>
> --
> Kent Crispin                              "Be good, and you will be
> kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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