Re: [wg-c] .eu and the notion of regional TLDs

[Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>]

At 10:26 PM 2/5/2000 , Milton Mueller wrote:
> > While such language sounds like nice compromise, I did not define two
> > end-points, nor did you.
>
>Extreme 1: IANA has already defined all necessary procedures to handle the 
>problem.
>Extreme 2: There are no existing procedures and all must be started from 
>scratch.
>Both are wrong. The truth is in the middle.

I repeat: Although that has all the tone of being wonderfully reasonable 
and maybe "rational", the reference to a "middle" is without elaboration 
and therefore without content or meaning, absent your affording us with 
that elaboration.

You previously issued a summary judgement, without explaining its basis:

>I understand this perspective. But the effective destruction of DNSO process

The EU is pursuing a path that invokes a thoroughly well-established IANA 
process.  There is no formal documentation requiring or suggesting that 
ICANN should modify or replace existing practise, or at least not without 
serious and legitimate reason.

You have offered no such reason other than emotion-filled declaratives 
about the result.


> > A meaningful range of software products for the net started appearing in
> > 1987 and commercial services started around 1990.  By 1994, there were
> > estimated to be 2 million users of the net.
>
>I am referring specifically to the management of the top level of the name
>space. Commercial pressure on that process did not begin until 1995, when
>charging for domain name registrations began, as you well know. In 1994,
>when RFC 1591 was defined, there was no charging.

You might want to learn a bit more about the processes (and costs) that 
were already taking place, for obtaining SLDs in domain name registration 
venues other than those administered by NSI.  A number of TLD 
administrators were already charging.


> > So suggesting that somehow IANA had not been "dealing" with the relevant
> > changes to the net prior to that is simply wrong.
>
>IANA did not issue a single controlling RFC regarding new TLDs or TLD
>delegation since 1994. As soon as charging was implemented and control of

That's the problem with relying on written records for a culture that had 
not yet fully come to rely on them.

Also as I noted previously, the tendency was to document existing 
procedure, rather than define new ones.    Treating those documents as the 
sole and definitive source entirely misunderstands their place.


>the root became a legal political and economic issue of significance it lost

Again, you would do well to do rather deeper research about the 
administrative and operational realities of the root during that 
time.  IANA very much continued to dictate its content.


>control. Wrt ccTLDs, even before 1994 IANA was learning to its dismay that
>ccTLD delegations were becoming more contentious politically, particularly

No one is debating whether ccTLDs have had their own, rocky road, although 
most of that rockiness pertained either to identifying the proper 
government agency or resolving government efforts to change from a 
pre-government-involved TLD administrator.  The basis for the latter had 
more to do with technical competence than "policy".


> > [IANA's loss of authority over adding names to the root]
> > was the direct result of intervention by Ira Magaziner.  He nicely and
> > fully de-stabilized the previously well-established position of IANA.  Had
> > he not intervened, the gTLDs-Mou would have been fully implemented.
>
>This is obviously wrong. Magaziner was not even paying attnetion to this
>issue in 1995, so he could not have prevented draft-Postel's proposal to add

Well, of course, if one relies on the incorrect claim that control was lost 
earlier, then no he was not the cause.

Given your extensive involvement in Net DNS technology, administration and 
operations in those days, I'm sure that debating the fine-grained details 
of this point will be interesting.


>150 TLDs (an episode you wisely chose to ignore in your response). As you

Sigh.  Thanks for asserting knowledge of my decision process, 
Milton.  However, the draft wasn't even on my radar screen, so I made no 
such choice.

Again, the problem here is more a lack of familiarity with common practises 
than anything really interesting.

More familiarity would offer the benefit of knowing that iterating on 
drafts, and even off-loading final handling to a "select" committee was not 
all that unusual.  The draft was circulated in the usual fashion for 
comment.  It got plenty and that prompted forming the IAHC.

Now, I suppose, we might have a debate about ISOC's vote on this matter, 
but we'll need to remember that their role WAS new and was, in any event, 
quite secondary to community rough consensus.

Again, I'd be glad to debate the fine-grained details of this, since your 
extensive experience with these activities at the time will provide 
interesting insight to contrast with my own...


>know, the trademark interests and ITU stopped that proposal (another fact
>you chose to ignore). Also, the new TLD proposers didn't like Postel's
>proposal either. The implication is clear: IANA had, even BEFORE the
>gTLD-MoU, completely lost the legitimacy and authority to add new names to

You think that having the proposal get rejected meant that IANA had lost 
legitimacy?

Pardon me, Milton, but the range of different labels -- none in the 
positive direction, of course -- for such an assessment has just overloaded 
my system.  I'll resort to the entirely too constrained "silly".

At the least this reflects such an impressively massive lack of knowledge 
about Internet processes, in force at that time, so as to make clear that 
further discussion about IANA's history cannot proceed until there is a 
seriously improved factual basis for your claims.


>Mueller: Commerce Dept specifically delegated the task of adding new TLDs 
>to ICANN's DNSO. It is in the White Paper.
>
>Crocker: The White Paper does no such thing. Since you claim otherwise, I 
>request that you cite the specific supporting text, and caution that text 
>in the White Paper is quite sensitive to proper use within context.
>
>Wow, Dave. You really know how to lob a softball into the middle of the plate.

You are welcome, Milton.  Since focus on the facts was proving so 
difficult, I had hoped to provide you the obviously necessary help.  Didn't 
work too well, though...

Just to make clear:  Support for a thesis requires more than simply quoting 
lots of text that has some random thing to do with the topic.  In needs to 
contain language that relates quite specifically to one side of the debate 
or another.


>"_ As Internet names increasingly have commercial value, the decision to add
>new top-level domains cannot be made on an ad hoc basis by entities or

The ccTLD process is not even close to ad hoc.


>individuals that are not formally accountable to the Internet community."
>
>"Response: The challenge of deciding policy for the addition of new domains
>will be formidable. We agree with the many commenters who said that the new
>corporation would be the most appropriate body to make these decisions based
>on global input."

Commentary section of the paper, rather than directive, and in no way 
dictating changing EXISTING practise.


>"As set out below, the U.S. Government is prepared to recognize, by entering

Where, in that quoted paragraph, does it say anything about establishing 
new practise or changing old ones?

The language talks about being responsible for administration.  That hardly 
supports the contention that the DNSO should DO anything about the matter.


>"In order to promote continuity and reasonable predictability in functions
>related to the root zone, the development of policies for the addition,
>allocation, and management of gTLDs and the establishment of domain name
>registries and domain name registrars to host gTLDs should be coordinated."

Yes, I had suspected you failed to note the "g" before the "TLD".

We have been talking about admission under the ISO table, and those are not 
gTLDs.  They are ccTLDs.


>"Purpose. The new corporation ultimately should have the authority to manage
>and perform a specific set of functions related to coordination of the
>domain name system, including the authority necessary to: ....
>
>3) oversee policy for determining the circumstances under which new TLDs are
>added to the root system."

That suggests that ICANN has the power to change existing policy, but it 
does not in any way suggest or mandate doing it for every existing practise 
or without substantial basis.

Nor does it say anything about requiring DNSO intervention in this 
matter.  Remember, you claimed that the White Paper REQUIRED DNSO intervention:

>Commerce Dept specifically delegated the task of adding new TLDs to ICANN's
>DNSO. It is in the White Paper. DNSO is not an "abstract sandbox," it is

Yet you quote no such approximate language from the White Paper, never mind 
"specific".


> > Oh, I suppose that one can use narrow, technical grounds, to debate and 
> contest the term "country", but one attuned to the intended philosophy 
> knows full well that it pertains to a class of entities, such as
> > governments, sovereignties, and the like. The EU definitely is such a 
> thing.
>
>This is what happens when computer programmers get it into their heads that
>they are policy experts and political scientists. The EU is not a "country."

Yeah, we really screwed up creation of the Internet, didn't we.  And heaven 
knows that all those policy experts and political scientists sure were 
helpful in creating and managing this phenomenon...

(To paraphrase the comment I used in an earlier note, "Thanks for doing 
such good work for 25 years, now go away and let the experts 'fix' things."

By the way Milton, responible discussion should include care in labeling 
other people.  Please review my background at 
<http://www.brandenburg.com>.  It's just a tad broader than programming.


>It is an association of countries. The EU has no sovereignty. Whatever
>governmental powers it has are delegated to it by real governments. The

Authority is usually delegated from somewhere.

The fact that you dismiss the validity of its coming from another 
government raises very interesting questions about your views on the US 
Federal government's genesis from authorizations by the 13 independent states.


>distinction is important, but only to people who have some grasp of
>political institutions.

As opposed to those who grasp more than "some"?

At any rate, I am relieved to hear that you do not teach reading comprehension.

d/

=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker  <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464
675 Spruce Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA

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