RE: Draft New Draft

["Antony Van Couvering" <avc@interport.net>]

Esther,

Much of any application to become the DNSO is political, especially when it
comes down to enumerating consituencies and assigning powers.  These are
purely procedural in one sense, but highly political in another.  As a sort
of backward proof, if it weren't political, why would people be fighting
over it?

It has been a favorite mechanism of establishments for a long time to
enshrine some power in a "mechanism" and then claim that it is the mechanism
that "forces" them to do something, that it has nothing to do with politics.
A good example of this practice at the moment is NSI's insistence on the
sanctity of its contracts with end-users, as if the contracts were not
simply an instrument of bending users to NSI's wishes, and as if these
contracts were not in fact changeable at will, e.g. upon renewal.

So, while I would agree with you and Kent that it would be nice to have a
DNSO with completely neutral mechanisms and procedures, it is hardly
possible.

Antony

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-discuss@dnso.org [mailto:owner-discuss@dnso.org]On Behalf Of
> Esther Dyson
> Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 7:08 PM
> To: Kent Crispin
> Cc: DNS Policy; DNSO
> Subject: Re: Draft New Draft
>
>
> Yes, especially to the last paragraph.
>
> Esther Dyson
>
> At 11:52 AM 01/02/99 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
> >On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 04:22:28PM +0100, Javier SOLA wrote:
> >[...]
> >>
> >> If what ORSC wants is to use the letter of 1591 to support that DNSO
> >> maintains the deviations that have been created by the NSi
> monolopy or the
> >> fact that some ccTLDs are managed for profit in no relation with the
> >> country the ISO code belongs to, then I am definitely against.
> >
> >The funny thing about all this is that the interpretation of 1591
> >that IATLD is hanging their hat on is just an interpretation.  I have
> >read it carefully, several times, and as far as I can see 1591 is
> >perfectly consistent with a strong "pro-sovereign" position.  For
> >example, the statement that IANA is not in the business of deciding
> >what is and is not a country is, in my reading completely neutral
> >concerning whether countries have control over "their" ccTLD.
> >
> >I have come to think of this as very similar to the trademark issue,
> >in fact.  A country has some distinct form of intellectual property
> >right in its ISO code.  It is a complex property right, to be sure,
> >different from trademark or copyright, but a right, nonetheless.
> >And the interesting question here is the relationship of that unique
> >property right with the domain name system.
> >
> >In any case, my opinion, and I suspect the opinion of ICANN, is that
> >the founding documents of the DNSO should contain no policy
> >statements at all.  They should just describe the organizational
> >structure and mechanisms.
> >
> >--
> >Kent Crispin, PAB Chair				"Do good,
> and you'll be
> >kent@songbird.com				lonesome." -- Mark Twain
> >
>
>
> Esther Dyson			Always make new mistakes!
> chairman, EDventure Holdings
> interim chairman, Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers
> edyson@edventure.com
> 1 (212) 924-8800
> 1 (212) 924-0240 fax
> 104 Fifth Avenue (between 15th and 16th Streets; 20th floor)
> New York, NY 10011 USA
> http://www.edventure.com
>
> PC Forum:  21 to 24 March 1999, Scottsdale (Phoenix), Arizona
> High-Tech Forum in Europe:  24 to 26 October 1999, Budapest
> Book:  "Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age"
>
>
>