Re: [ga] .ct

["Roberto Gaetano" <ploki_xyz@hotmail.com>]

Ricard,

This has been debated before, but it is probably easier to answer again than 
point you to past discussions.

Let's start from the original question, in your previous message 
(http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc11/msg00615.html)
>
>As our Ministry for Industry has not shown any great interest to date in 
>submitting the corresponding ISO application, we consider it necessary to 
>apply pressure through lobbying and the gathering of signatures and support 
>through our website: www.domini-ct.org. Over the last six years, we have 
>collected 7.000 demonstrations of support from among individuals, 
>companies, institutions, and political parties from throughout the world.
>

Your Ministry for Industry is unfortunately right.
If you check the purpose for ISO-3166, you will see that it is composed of 
sevral parts (see 
http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/a3ptnorm.html). The first part, 
ISO-3166-1, contains, inter alia, the 2-char country codes used by ICANN as 
the basis for the delegation of ccTLDs. ISO's current policy is not to add 
(please note the verb "add") to this list administrative subdivisions of 
countries: these are placed in ISO-3166-2 (see 
http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/devrel_2.html).
So, CT will *not* be added to ISO-3166-1 by ISO, and the Ministry of 
Industry knows this. As for ISO-3166-2, Catalunya *is already* part of the 
list.
Please note that the urls above are old ones, you can navigate on the new 
site of the ISO-3166/MA (the Maintenance Agency responsible for the 
maintenance of the ISO-3166 lists - see 
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/index.html).

To your latest comments and questions:
>
>Our point of view, and also of many members of ISOC-CAT, is that ICANN 
>should not take desicions based on the ISO lists. We think that ICANN 
>should be independent of the interests of entities not directly related 
>with the net.

>From what I know of ICANN, it will never take such critical decisions with 
political impact, without basing the decisions on an officially recognized 
and authoritative source. ICANN did not get into the business of defining 
which is a country and which is not, you can imagining getting into the 
business of defining which part of a country is autonomous enough to get a 
specific ccTLD.
*If* any authority other than ISO has to produce the list, this should be 
some kind of self-government body of the ccTLDs themselves (and please note 
the stress on *if*).

>
>or the kurds, or the palestinians, or the lakotas. Why not? Where is the 
>problem? Would this to be a critical problem for the DNS?

No, but it would be an enormous problem for ICANN, who all of a sudden will 
have political responsibilities rather than technical coordination tasks. 
Speaking of the Palestinians, you might have noticed that .ps was delegated 
only after its inclusion in ISO-3166-1. Please refer to 
http://www.iana.org/reports/ps-report-22mar00.htm, and note the motivation, 
in particular the reference to the fact that when a previous attempt was 
made, PS was not (yet) in ISO-3166-1, and that fact was sufficient for 
refusal.

>
>>Or by each of the fifty states of the United States?
>
>Why not?  Have you an answer?

Yes.
US has decided to use subdivisions of .us.

>
>As I said in my first message, our way is a democratic parliament 
>representing 6 milion of european citizens. Five years ago, our parliament 
>voted with unanimity a resolution to get the .ct domain, from comunists to 
>liberalists.

You might also vote with unanimity a resolution to get the sun to rise from 
west, but it does not necessarily follow that the sun will recognise the 
consensus, and obey the resolution. Same for ISO and IANA.

>
>But... can you answer those questions?:
>Why US minor islands (.um), Ascension  Island (.ac), Guernsey (.gg), Isle 
>of Man (.im) and Jersey (.je) and others has a ccTLD and are not ISO3166 
>standards?
You might want to have a closer look at ISO-3166-1. There is also a 
so-called "reserved list", that contains mostly islands that are separated 
for the mainland territory (incidentally, IC is reserved for the Canary 
Islands).
In the past, ccTLDs have been delegated for some of these. If I understand 
correctly IANA's policy, automatical delegation upon request will no longer 
be the case in the future, and a "nihil obstat" declaration from ISO-3166/MA 
will be required. But you might want to check this with IANA.
In other words, even inclusion in the reserved list might not be a 
guarantee.

>What about Taiwan, Palestina, Macau, Timor...?

See above.
Moreover, Palestina (the Palestinian Territory) is recognized by the UN, and 
if by Timor you mean East Timor, this is also the case.

>Why ISO says United Kingdom = .gb, and the ICANN says United Kingdom = .uk?

This was a mistake by IANA, and the fix will be worse than the damage, as it 
would oblige all domain names to change. But don't worry, ICANN will never 
delegate .gb. You might also take into account that ISO refused to register 
the code "UK" as representing the name "United Kingdom", because it was 
formed by two generic words ("United" and "Kingdom") that were not 
geografically identifying a part of the world. The UK was successful, 
though, in getting this through IANA. Oddly enough, the argumentation for 
denying UK by ISO was not applied to US ("United" and "States").

>Why a zone without representation in the UNO like the Antartica (.aq) has a 
>ISO3166 standard?

It is explained in the ISO-3166 documentation itself.

>Why needs a ccTLD an unhabited region like Bouvet Island (.bv) or Heard 
>Island (.hm)?

They probably don't need it, but it has been asked for, and delegated when 
nobody at IANA did suspect that this would have become a can of worms. But 
you might ask Alf (alf.hansen@uninett.no), technical contact for .bv.
Also, one ICANN Board member is Catalan, Amedeu Abril i Abril 
(Amadeu@nominalia.com), you might want to contact him for advice.

Last but not least:
>
>(excuse my english)
Since being you Catalan, English is your third language, if not more, I 
believe that you are doing an outstanding job. I understand you much better 
than I understand some native English speakers on this list (but I'm biased, 
I'm also non-native English speaker).

Best regards
Roberto


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