RE: $200 million (was [ga] Draft Resolution)

[Dave Crocker <dhc2@dcrocker.net>]

At 07:12 AM 3/19/2001, Gomes, Chuck wrote:
>It is a commitment to invest at least $200M total in R&D and infrastructure
>improvements to improve the .com, .net and .org registries over 10 years.
>Part of that would be used to improve the com/net/org gTLD zone server
>constellation which would be made available to the new .org registry for one
>year for free and beyond that at terms to be determined later.  Also, other
>registries would be allowed access to that constellation and thereby take
>advantage of by far the best zone server constellation available.claz

Chuck,

US$200M is such an impressive number, it is worth being very clear about 
the nature of the real expenses.  That requires a) answering Elizabeth's 
query more completely, and b) clarifying what the monies will be applied 
to.  US$20/year will buy one heck of a lot of infrastructure.

Note that Elizabeth asked whether this expenditure would be IN ADDITION to 
planned Verisign "R&D" expenses.

Note that it is even possible to list basic co-location and connectivity 
expenses under the language for R&D that is present.

Absent your providing clarifying language, this piece of the agreement 
appears to say no more than:

a) Verisign will spend at least US$20/year, for 10 years, to pay for 
registry hardware, software, connectivity and operations; and

b) This infrastructure will be made available to com, net and org.

A skeptic might suspect that the US$20M/year number is simply a low number 
for the expenditures that Verisign would be required to run the service; if 
there is anything unusual or incremental about this commitment, it is not 
clear what.


Points of continuing confusion:

1. The draft agreement refers only to com, while the letter refers to com, 
net and org;

2. The distinction between applying to money to "registry" services in 
general, versus specific access functions such as DNS and whois, is not 
clarified.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker   <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking   <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel: +1.408.246.8253;   fax: +1.408.273.6464

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