Re[4]: [wg-c] Recap from past threads...

["William X. Walsh" <william@dso.net>]

Monday, August 23, 1999, 12:48:48 AM, Roeland M.J. Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com> wrote:

> We were getting to this just before Johnathan's straw-vote report.If you
> look at it from a business perspective, there is no incremental cost to
> adding yet another TLD to a registry (just another zone file). However,
> the incremental cost of adding another full-blown registry is
> comparatively huge (a  new data center and supporting business
> organization). This makes it rather trivial for an established registry
> to swamp the competition.

Set limits then (say no more than x TLDs can be under the control of
one single registry or other organization, to include subsidiaries,
etc).

> I am not interested in more TLDs for NSI. I am interested in more
> registries so I don't have to live under NSI's DDRP, which is the main
> reason that I got involved in this political cat-fight in the first
> place. I get reminded of this every time I renew my SLDs and I, of
> course, read the "new" license. It flat-out pisses me off every time I
> read the damned thing and I have no place else to go. I want another TLD
> registry choice, other than COM/NET/ORG, aka NSI, even if I have to
> build the damned thing myself. I hate railroads and I hate not having
> options (one and the same). Moreover, I hate having my business held
> hostage to some nimrod's idea (DDRP/ADR/etc) of a lawyer job-security
> policy. I believe that free-market competition, among TLD registries,
> will give us options. Choices are "good"<tm>.

No argument here, Roland, we have the exact same concern and for the
exact same reason.

> Did I also mention that I am a touch on the paranoid side? I don't trust
> centralized control either. Multiple registries are good, in this light,
> as is a multi-part root. I'd also like to see multiple root-zone
> registries, each with their own family of TLD registries. But, that's a
> bit much for now. A lot more technical work needs doing for that to be
> viable.

But here is where we part the ways.  I see an alternative root server
network as a means for the Internet Community to route around ICANN
should it adopt policies that are widely considered to be in
appropriate.  ISPs that I communicate with are open to this, but are
taking a wait and see position, giving ICANN the benefit of the doubt
and a chance to do the right thing.

I still hold out hope that this is possible.  I see an alternative
root system as something that we should avoid unless it turns out to
be needed to route around the damage, and even then be used as a means
of applying pressure (political and economic) to bring about change.


--
William X. Walsh - DSo Internet Services
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