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

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Tue, May 29, 2001 at 12:40:27AM -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:
> Mueller to Crispin:

Crispin to Mueller:

Glad to see you have solved your problems with your mail client.

> OK. You've conceded that one of your premises is
> self-contradictory. 

No, I didn't.

> But you believe that its self-contradictory nature 
> somehow proves your conclusion that ICANN "cannot"
> approve multiple roots. (Do you mean "should not?")

Apparently you don't understand the nature of a reductio 
ad absurdum argument.  Unfortunately, I don't have time to explain it 
to you.

> 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.

Nonsense.  There would still be name collisions.  By construction ICANN
wouldn't have the only root zone, and the others don't coordinate.  
That is, even if approval meant that ICANN would do its best to 
coordinate with other root zones, there would still be name collisions, 
because other root zones have nothing that makes them

> 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.

Sorry I wasn't clear.  Saying that ICANN "cannot" do this was shorthand 
for saying "ICANN cannot reasonably do this".  The US cannot reasonably 
declare war on China, for example, though in some abstract theoretical 
sense it does have the power to do so.  Realistically speaking, ICANN 
is in a similar situation with respect to name.space -- there is no 
practical way it could approve those 500 names without seriously 
causing trouble on other policy fronts.

> It can,
> and it might even be good policy.

Not if one thinks about it.

> 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.

Only if all other root zones accept ICANN as the authoritative standard
for what goes in the root zone.  If they don't accept ICANN as the
standard, then of course they can have collisions with each other, and
the stability of the Internet is compromised.  And of course if they all
accept ICANN as the standard, then we wouldn't be having this
discussion.

> 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.

Yes, of course, I should just leave that to you.

> 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.

That is, there are a number of complicating factors.  Indeed there are. 
We simply don't know for sure how a multiple root situation would work
out, and your claim that it must converge to a single root zone is
really just speculation.  As you finally admit below, there are indeed 
complicating factors -- complicating factors you hadn't addressed.

> 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. 

[...]

> 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.

It's interesting how you argue one way, and then the other...

In any case, that is why I so carefully construct the example of the
French and English versions of .biz.  You must have missed that in your
reading of my paper.  Moreover, you ignore the fact that it can take
significant time for a standards battle to resolve, even if it does
resolve. 

[...]

> 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.

Good.  New.net is just hype, then.

[...]


-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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