Re: [ga-roots] Proposed ICANN Policy

["Patrick Corliss" <patrick@corliss.net>]

On Tuesday, April 24, 2001 7:23 AM (AEST), John Charles Broomfield wrote:

> ICANN (or anyone operating ANY bunch of root-servers -legacy or not-)
> has to decide what exactly it is going to consider legitimate enough to
> warrant respect. No, this is NOT "higher than thou", it is just common
sense.

Hi John

I think most people will agree with the truth of your observations below.
What we need to do now, it seems to me, is move on from saying "Yes, there
is a problem" to working out whether on not ICANN should have a policy and,
if so, what it should be.

> *ALL* of the alternative roots out there have their own rules as to what
> they consider legitimate or not (to an extent). Just blindly saying that
> ANY previously set up TLD *ANYWHERE* in the world is to be respected
> is just not good enough.

Agreed.  What do you suggest?

> The alternative root servers have each and every one of them their own
> rules to define collisions and to define what is or not worthy of respect.
> Just saying as a blanket statement that the alternative root servers do
not
> have collisions is a falacy.

Alternative roots do have collisions (witness New.Net) but they generally
work very hard to minimise their occurrence.  It is in everybody's *best
interests* to take that approach.

> Of course, they will all claim that my nameservers and my namespace don't
> count as far as their own rules to how they manage their servers. Of
> course, they are right, but at the same time they fail to see that ICANN
can
> decide what is worthy of respect and what isn't, what merits a claim to
> non-collision and what doesn't. In other words, as far as ICANN is
> concerned, there is NO collision. As far as OTHER peoples namespaces go,
> that is their own problem...

ICANN might say that.  However, that is a short-sighted approach.

> Nothing stops them from continuing to use those addresses as
> they wish, but its not something that I would recommend. (I see this type
> of scenario every day by the way, speaks a lot about who sets up their
> network).

Of course.  That is why we are considering what the policy should be.  It
may be that ICANN's policy should simply be along the lines of:

"ICANN adopts compliance with the relevant DNS standards as a general
principle.  It recognises that there is a likelihood of collision and/or
confusion when root operators do not comply with RFC 1591 which suggests
that there should be a "unique root zone*.  ICANN will therefore adopt
methods and measures to foster co-operation and compliance within the
industry."

Given your stated views, do you see any merit in such an approach?

Best regards
Patrick Corliss




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