Re: [discuss] Unofficial minutes June 11 1999 Names Council Meeting

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Tue, Jun 29, 1999 at 08:43:02PM -0400, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
> *sigh* 
> 
> I suppose I should have used a smiley.  I was trying gently to suggest
> that just becasue the MoU used a term in a deviant way from the RFCs did
> not make that term of general usage.

A smiley might have helped.  I chose to ignore what I interpreted as
sly sarcasm in your comment, and just gave you a straight answer. 

In any case, you are incorrect.  You forget that for a year or more
the gTLD-MoU was *the* plan, period.  All the discussion, in every
forum, on the topic of gTLDs was in the terms that the MoU defined,
and this discussion was far wider than the readership of the RFCs. 
I'm not going to defend that fact that the gTLD-MoU deviated from the
RFCs -- I didn't think it was a particularly good idea, myself, and,
as I mentioned, I actually suggested an alternate term.  But there is
no question that the MoU did alter the general usage. 

It may very well be that as the MoU fades in the sunset the rfc1591
definitions will prevail.  However, I think a more realistic
assessment is that the situation has changed radically from the days
when 1591 was written.  

In fact, one time (before he got the now PC 1591 religion) Tony
talked about how gov, mil, and edu should be considered as defacto
ccTLDs controlled by the US, and this is actually probably a more
accurate way to think about them.  

No matter what you may call them, it is clear that they are
grandfathered special cases (as is .int, of course), and in almost
any rational categorization they do not belong with com, net, and
org. 

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