[wg-c] "within the process"

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2000 at 01:56:27PM -0800, William X. Walsh wrote:
>> The only such company is CORE.  Companies that file lawsuits to force
>> their way into the IANA root, and in the meantime use rogue root zones,
>> can not by any stretch be said to be working "within the process". 
>
>CORE is no better, Kent.  IANA had no authority to grant to them.

That is neither true nor relevant.  1) It's not true, because IANA in
fact did authorize TLDs -- many TLDs -- over its tenure.  2) More
important, it's not relevant, because whether IANA had authority or not,
that was the only process available, and CORE diligently played by the
best set of rules it knew.  IODesign, on the other hand, filed a lawsuit
when the process didn't go the way it wanted.  The fact that the USG
came along and usurped the process is not CORE's fault, and when that
happened, CORE played that game as well, though they most certainly
weren't happy about it. 

In addition, there is a fundamental logical fallacy in what you say -- 
withdrawal of a delegation of authority does not mean that the entity 
from which that authority was withdrawn never had the authority.

Indeed the rules have changed; CORE has done its best to play
constructively within the rules despite the moving target.  IODesign, on
the other hand, sits like a hungry tick looking at what it thinks is a
throbbing artery, interested only in its private gain. 

CORE is certainly not a perfect organization.  By any measure I know,
there are some CORE registrars that have, shall we say, less than
perfect ethics, and, since CORE is a member organization, its behavior 
will be influenced to some extent by those bad apples.  But when push 
came to shove, CORE has made the right choices -- there was, for 
example, a period of time when there was serious discussion of forming 
an alternate root zone.  But that alternative was rejected, because of 
the potential for destabilizing the Internet.  IODesign, on the other 
hand, has no concern about the stability of the Internet, and actively 
supports alternate root zones.

>>CORE was
>operating just as outside the process as IOD.

You are talking about some process that never existed, then.  CORE was
dealing with the only real game in town, and followed the admittedly 
vague rules as best it could.

>I know you think by ignoring
>that point you can pretend it doesn't exist, but the reality is still there. 
>If IANA did have the authority, then NSF wouldn't have directed NSI to not add
>any new gTLDs submitted by IANA.

You have this exactly backward.  In fact, this example demonstrates
conclusively that IANA *did* have the authority -- otherwise NSF would
not have acted. 

Prior to that action on the part of NSF NSI did add TLDs on IANA's
authority.  NSF changed the rules. 

>Your justification for giving CORE some higher position is as weak as Chris's
>for IOD.
>
>All applications, regardless of the prior work of the applicant, should be
>considered on their merits alone, and nothing more. 

Yay!  We agree on something.

As far as selection of registries is concerned, I agree.  I am not
arguing that CORE should be given special treatment as a registry --
registries should be selected according to technical merit, business
case, and perhaps other factors such as geographic diversity. 

As far as special treatment for TLD names, that is a totally orthogonal
issue -- since I believe that names should be selected completely
independent of any registry selection, the IAHC names should be
evaluated independently of their connection with CORE -- and on that
basis I think there are very good arguments that they should be used,
since there is a very large user awareness of these names.

It is obvious that the pre-registrations that some CORE registrars have
could have no special standing -- that is, if I had pre-registered
"kent.nom" with some CORE registrar there can be absolutely no guarantee
that I would actually get kent.nom -- some other person, using some
other registrar (perhaps not a CORE registrar) could register kent.nom
before me.  If I had prepaid that registration, the registrar could try
to get it for me as soon as registrations opened, but kent is a common 
name, and there could be 5 other registrars doing the same thing.

However, if the TLD names are selected independently of the registries,
and announced some number of months in advance of registry operation,
then *every* ICANN accredited registrar would have the opportunity to
pre-register domains in the selected TLDs.  No registrar could guarantee
the name, of course, because the registrars are all independent.  (This
was true in CORE, it would be even more true in this case.)

So, indeed, the pre-registrations by CORE registries would give them a
*small* advantage -- though I don't know, I believe that the number of
pre-registrations is in the low 10s of thousands.  But given a period of
time between the selection of names and selection of registries, the
independent ICANN accredited registrars could well have a better chance
of getting a name registered.  (This is because CORE as a whole is a
single registrar, and, presuming some round robin algorithm is adopted
to ensure equal access by registrars, CORE will get its one chance in N
to register a name, as its slot goes by.  Of course, those CORE
registrars who are also ICANN accredited registrars will have a better
chance.)

So, given that registry selection is independent of name selection, I 
don't see that use of the IAHC names would give CORE registrars a 
significant advantage.  There would be some, I grant, but it would be 
pretty small.

Note: The IAHC names were all intended to be essentially open TLDs -- it
has never been contemplated that they ever have more than advisory
charters.  I think it is a fairly safe bet that any open TLDs will have
to be run as shared registries, and that any ICANN accredited registrar
will be able to register in those TLDs; that they will be under the UDRP
rules, and that basically they will be run in a manner very similar to
.com, .net, and .org.  Any significant deviation from this would, in my
opinion, run into significant opposition from NSI, from the IP
community, from the current registrars, and a great many other sources. 

If CORE were by chance selected as a registry for .web they would be
required to give equal access to *all* ICANN accredited registrars,
including NSI (as registrar), CORE (as a single registrar), AOL (as
registrar), IODesign (as registrar) and every other registrar. 
Precisely the same would be the case for IODesign, or any other approved
registry. 

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