Re: [wg-c] Eureka?

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Aug 05, 1999 at 11:47:19AM -0400, Jonathan Weinberg wrote:

[...]

> 	As for structured name space: I've indicated in this list that I think
> lots of new gTLDs would be a good idea.  I've indicated that competitive
> registries choosing their own TLD strings may be a good idea.  I've
> indicated that a centrally planned name space may be a bad idea.  That
> doesn't make the issues inextricable.

What makes them inextricable is the fact that there is only one name
space.  Either it is planned, or it is not.  It is simply incoherent
to say that it is planned, but that we allow free choice of names to
some set of participants -- that free choice undermines any
possibility of planning.

I don't like to use analogies, but perhaps one will help: You have a
tract of land, and you say part of it will be planned development,
and part of it will be given to a developer to develop, free of any
plan.  The planned part is to be for residential units.  The 
developer decides to build a toxic waste dump.  The two uses don't 
work together.  In fact, the use of the land as a toxic waste dump 
prempts the use of any of the nearby plots for most purposes.

Of course it is not possible to plan everything in advance, and any
use will preclude some other choices -- that's a given.  But one can
be prudent in ones choices, and pick things with wide acceptance, or
that have relatively less impact.

I believe you have indulged in a rather serious implicit
mischaracterization what I have proposed, as well.  You speak of
"planned namespaces" with echos of faceless gray secret soviet style
planned economies. 

But the planning I refer to is planning through public open processes
in a manner common in civilized democratic societies.  If we may
pursue the real estate analogy just a little further: land use
planning is a ubiquitous feature of modern urban society.  Many
people would like to treat the DNS as a wide-open frontier landrush,
where we need to support homesteading capitalists, and give them the
widest possible leeway to develop the wilderness.  But many others
believe that we are well past that stage, and the shop keepers and
farmers need a more settled and controlled environment.

Wild open spaces still exist in cyberspace -- they are the alternate 
root systems, where someone can make up a root zone with the seven 
dirty words for TLDs, if they so desire.

[...]

> Alternatively, the WG may conclude that ICANN *should* pursue a structured
> name space.  If so, then it will do better to plan out a phased rollout
> from the beginning, than to add new gTLDs in a series of disconnected,
> episodic fits and starts.

No problem :-).  I think that the phased rollout should start with a set
of about half a dozen gTLD names, chosen through an open public
process.

[...]
> ...*any* would be a losing battle.  Once a few new gTLDs are introduced,
> though, much of that pent-up demand will be gone. Trademark folks will
> still oppose additional TLDs, even if the record shows that adding the
> first set did little to injure their interests, because many of them really
> do seem to believe that all other issues pale in importance next to "On the
> margin, does this change make it easier or harder to engage in trademark
> policing?"

To extract the meat from your last sentence above, you basically say:
"The TM community is unreasonable."

I presume you base this position on statements to this list that TM
folks have blocked new gTLDs in the past -- that would be
understandable, given some of the previous posts.  

The similar condensation of your more complete position, as I
understand it, goes like this:

"The TM community is unreasonable, so we must structure things so 
that they will be forced to allow more gTLDs, because I believe that 
'more gTLDs' is an intrinsic good.  To make them feel better about being 
forced, we will do it over a year or two."

However, I think your position (as I understand it) is based on at
least three bad assumptions:

1) TM people are unreasonable;
2) their actual (as opposed to strawman) position is unreasonable;
3) they are the only ones who favor a cautious approach.

I realize I have characterized your position in a rather bald way, 
but I think it is important that you understand how it looks to me.
Is there any fundamental error in the way I have characterized
it?

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain