From: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org (WG-C-DIGEST) To: wg-c-digest@dnso.org Subject: WG-C-DIGEST V1 #58 Reply-To: Sender: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Errors-To: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Precedence: bulk WG-C-DIGEST Wednesday, March 22 2000 Volume 01 : Number 058 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 20:49:14 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 22-Mar-2000 Mark C. Langston wrote: > Actually, I think your proposal, however well-intentioned, provides > significant power to certain groups while excluding others. I may be reading into things, but I think that was the point. To make those concensions for political expediency in the hopes of getting support for the TLDs his organization is backing. But you know me, always looking at the motivations behind the posts. - - -- William X. Walsh http://userfriendly.com/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192 GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1c (Mandrake Linux) Comment: Userfriendly Networks http://www.userfriendly.com/ iD8DBQE42FDJ8zLmV94Pz+IRAhDWAKDtdtFIze44OgvnwJyBq657A3wW7wCfee6e tpfON5vE3LHATuahpnpVjzI= =FTg9 - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 14:08:38 +0900 From: "Robert F. Connelly" Subject: [wg-c] Texts of wg-c and wg-b reports. Will someone tell me where to find the wg-c report we just voted on? Is it on our web site? Is the wg-b report also available on the web? Regards, BobC ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 21:18:47 -0800 (PST) From: Patrick Greenwell Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, William X. Walsh wrote: > This whole thing is based on the supposition that the top level domains should > be selected independent of the registry applications. I think that an > application process should be created, the applications include the TLD > proposal, and each application is considered on its merits. This is really the > only fair way of doing it. The only "fair way" to do it is to ask the Internet community what TLDs they want, and act accordingly. Anything else subjects everyone to another arbitrary and capricious set of decisions made by the ICANN board. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Patrick Greenwell Earth is a single point of failure. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 21:20:54 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 22-Mar-2000 Patrick Greenwell wrote: > On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, William X. Walsh wrote: > >> This whole thing is based on the supposition that the top level domains >> should >> be selected independent of the registry applications. I think that an >> application process should be created, the applications include the TLD >> proposal, and each application is considered on its merits. This is really >> the >> only fair way of doing it. > > The only "fair way" to do it is to ask the Internet community what TLDs > they want, and act accordingly. Anything else subjects everyone to another > arbitrary and capricious set of decisions made by the ICANN board. > Never work. How do you ask the Internet Community, Patrick? How do you define the Internet Community? And besides, picking the strings independent of a real proposal for how it will be run is mostly useless. A .per TLD is meaningless without the proposal that says who and how it is to be run. - - -- William X. Walsh http://userfriendly.com/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192 GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1c (Mandrake Linux) Comment: Userfriendly Networks http://www.userfriendly.com/ iD8DBQE42Fg28zLmV94Pz+IRAtIHAJ44Ooc2MkCp0Cf5BhevKjaxb60BAQCfdhSg 5n6r11YlNoLkpT/Q2C5Og3g= =FmfI - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 21:49:15 -0800 (PST) From: Patrick Greenwell Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, William X. Walsh wrote: > Never work. How do you ask the Internet Community, Patrick? I'd ask that question of the ICANN board. They claim to be operating under the auspices of "community consensus...." > How do you define the Internet Community? And besides, picking the > strings independent of a real proposal for how it will be run is mostly > useless. Bull. That's like saying you can't run a phone company without a proposal on how it will be run. Domain names are very much akin to a utility. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Patrick Greenwell Earth is a single point of failure. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:06:56 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 22-Mar-2000 Patrick Greenwell wrote: >> How do you define the Internet Community? And besides, picking the >> strings independent of a real proposal for how it will be run is mostly >> useless. > > Bull. That's like saying you can't run a phone company without a proposal > on how it will be run. Domain names are very much akin to a utility. *shrug* I see you ignored the example I gave, I'd be happy to provide more to bolster the position if it's important. And I hope the reference to asking ICANN how to poll the internet community was tongue in cheek :) - - -- William X. Walsh http://userfriendly.com/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192 GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1c (Mandrake Linux) Comment: Userfriendly Networks http://www.userfriendly.com/ iD8DBQE42GMA8zLmV94Pz+IRAms9AJ4oUFKc1zSAA2Mo3T4YCwbyeJXkkgCfS5T6 mLZBreu2PRn4ZwtP98VxfyM= =Spz7 - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:13:35 -0800 From: "Christopher Ambler" Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed It would also make it into a buyable beauty contest, subject to serious corruption and capture. - -- Christopher Ambler chris@the.web - -----Original Message----- From: owner-wg-c@dnso.org [mailto:owner-wg-c@dnso.org]On Behalf Of James Love Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 7:09 PM To: wg-c@dnso.org Subject: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed There are a large number of proposals for TLDs. If ICANN begins with the WG-C proposal of 6 to 10 testbed TLDs, it will be pretty hard to decide which TLDs go first. Assuming that the testbed is simply the first step in a real expansion of the TLD space (as were the first testbed registrars for .com, .net and .org), it may not be extremely important which ones go first, but it will probably be important enough to be controversial. I propose the decision making be decentralized. I would recommend 3 be selected by the business/registrar constituencies, 3 by the non-commercial domain holders, and 3 selected by the ICANN at large members, in an online vote. That's 9, and the 10th could be selected in some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or something else. This would provide a simple way to reduce the power that any one group would have, and it would probably also lead to some diversity in the types of management structures considered in the first round. Jamie - ----------------------- James Love, Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:17:37 -0800 From: "Christopher Ambler" Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed >> How do you define the Internet Community? And besides, picking the >> strings independent of a real proposal for how it will be run is mostly >> useless. > >Bull. That's like saying you can't run a phone company without a proposal >on how it will be run. Domain names are very much akin to a utility. And when was the last time I got to tell the phone company what number I wanted or how it should be run? Even my public utilities commission doesn't care. - -- Christopher Ambler chris@the.web ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:25:27 -0800 (PST) From: Patrick Greenwell Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Christopher Ambler wrote: > >> How do you define the Internet Community? And besides, picking the > >> strings independent of a real proposal for how it will be run is mostly > >> useless. > > > >Bull. That's like saying you can't run a phone company without a proposal > >on how it will be run. Domain names are very much akin to a utility. > > And when was the last time I got to tell the phone company what number > I wanted or how it should be run? We just ordered a specific toll-free number. The phone company was happy to take our business. > Even my public utilities commission doesn't care. One problem at a time... ;-) /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Patrick Greenwell Earth is a single point of failure. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:25:57 -0800 (PST) From: Patrick Greenwell Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Christopher Ambler wrote: > It would also make it into a buyable beauty contest, subject > to serious corruption and capture. Too late. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Patrick Greenwell Earth is a single point of failure. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:31:44 -0800 From: Dave Crocker Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed At 10:09 PM 3/21/00 -0500, James Love wrote: >and .org), it may not be extremely important which ones go first, but it >will probably be important enough to be controversial. It should not be that important, no. However, those who get in first presumably have a competitive advantage, since there is such agitation about having for-profit registries. That goes away, of course, of the registries are non-profit. A realted question is whether the names are selected separately from selecting the registries that administer them -- making the name choices far less controversial -- or whether the activity is tied to particular registry authorizations. >I propose the decision making be decentralized. I would recommend 3 be >selected by the business/registrar constituencies, 3 by the >non-commercial domain holders, and 3 selected by the ICANN at large >members, in an online vote. That's 9, and the 10th could be selected in The basic idea of having a broad effort is quite reasonable. The problem with your particular choices are that, as noted, there won't be an operational at-large mechanism for something. The other problem is that there has not been a particularly active, and certainly not coherent, and most especially not representative, non-commercial domain holder's constituency. Having already participated in an effort to produce a list of 7 names, I'm disinclined to do it again, myself. >some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or You would consider giving the rogue registry participants -- the folks who tried to replace the IANA DNS root system -- special position??? d/ =-=-=-=-= Dave Crocker Brandenburg Consulting Tel: +1.408.246.8253, Fax: +1.408.273.6464 675 Spruce Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:42:52 -0800 From: "Christopher Ambler" Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed >Having already participated in an effort to produce a list of 7 names, I'm >disinclined to do it again, myself. Yeah, especially since that participation might come back and bite you in the rear. - -- Christopher Ambler chris@the.web ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 23:01:44 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 22-Mar-2000 Dave Crocker wrote: >>some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or > > You would consider giving the rogue registry participants -- the folks who > tried to replace the IANA DNS root system -- special position??? And you would give CORE, the group who tried to force their way into the USG controlled DNS root system by paying for a PR campaign and making promises to the public it couldn't deliver on? Spare us the self righteous attitude, Dave, please. It is not very becoming, especially on you. - - -- William X. Walsh http://userfriendly.com/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192 GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1c (Mandrake Linux) Comment: Userfriendly Networks http://www.userfriendly.com/ iD8DBQE42G/Y8zLmV94Pz+IRAnFsAKDcZjElRBtWzDMZRr6O4jWmCondXQCdHxEV uLiEDnAF3RcQiVAGB7rlM2o= =xstx - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 23:23:50 -0800 From: Kent Crispin Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Tue, Mar 21, 2000 at 09:49:15PM -0800, Patrick Greenwell wrote: > On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, William X. Walsh wrote: > > > Never work. How do you ask the Internet Community, Patrick? > > I'd ask that question of the ICANN board. They claim to be operating under > the auspices of "community consensus...." The defined method for finding community consensus for TLD names is through WGs of the DNSO. Anyone can participate in a WG -- they are completely open. > > How do you define the Internet Community? And besides, picking the > > strings independent of a real proposal for how it will be run is mostly > > useless. > > Bull. That's like saying you can't run a phone company without a proposal > on how it will be run. Domain names are very much akin to a utility. There are 240+ registries of all shapes and sizes. Most of them are tiny and have miniscule infrastructure; a few are very large. Experience has shown that there is no need for a registry to start with huge infrastructure. - -- Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be kent@songbird.com lonesome." -- Mark Twain ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 00:33:00 -0800 From: "Roeland M. J. Meyer" Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed > > How do you define the Internet Community? And besides, picking the > > strings independent of a real proposal for how it will be > run is mostly > > useless. > > Bull. That's like saying you can't run a phone company > without a proposal > on how it will be run. Domain names are very much akin to a utility. On the contrary, that is exactly how the phone company, and other business, is run. It's called a "business plan" and is about the ONLY way business will get funded. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 00:48:30 -0800 From: "Roeland M. J. Meyer" Subject: [wg-c] Requirements for a TLD registry I guess my second post today will be as contrary as the first. > Experience has shown that there is no need for a registry to > start with huge infrastructure. That may be possible for the first-mover, it is exactly the first-mover advantage. They don't need the large infrastructure becasue there isn't much competition for them. Ergo, the one-time experience that we do have isn't valid. The first-mover sets the standard for others to follow. Look at my proposal carefully, you'll see that it raises the bar substantially, even beyond services that NSI was providing at the time. Note that, since Verisign bought NSI, my suggestion that the registry is also the the domain Certificate Service Provider (CSP) will also be assimilated by NSI. Any new TLD will have to come up to, at least, the service level that NSI provides, if it wishes to become commercially viable. Steppinmg up to this service level will be non-trivial, as is the infrastructure requirement. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 07:08:12 -0500 From: Jonathan Weinberg Subject: Re: [wg-c] Texts of wg-c and wg-b reports. At 02:08 PM 3/22/00 +0900, Robert F. Connelly wrote: >Will someone tell me where to find the wg-c report we just voted on? Is it >on our web site? > >Is the wg-b report also available on the web? Both the wg-b and wg-c reports are now available linked from . Ours has been posted with my vote tally message stuck onto the end, and I'm trying to get that last bit replaced with a slightly cleaner formulation. Due to the last-minute pressures of coordination between Elisabeth, the NC and me, I never did get to fix the abbreviations in the way that Bob suggested. Jon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 07:21:04 -0500 From: Jonathan Weinberg Subject: correction: Re: [wg-c] Texts of wg-c and wg-b reports. My mistake: a copy of the report with a clean vote tally was posted yesterday, but I didn't realize it at first b/c I was looking at a cached version. (I also appended a vote tally for each of the consensus calls, at the request of one of the NC members.) Jon >Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 07:08:12 -0500 >To: wg-c@dnso.org >From: Jonathan Weinberg >Subject: Re: [wg-c] Texts of wg-c and wg-b reports. >In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20000322140635.00af22c0@teal.sni.net> > >At 02:08 PM 3/22/00 +0900, Robert F. Connelly wrote: >>Will someone tell me where to find the wg-c report we just voted on? Is it >>on our web site? >> >>Is the wg-b report also available on the web? > > Both the wg-b and wg-c reports are now available linked from . Ours has been posted with my vote tally message stuck onto the end, and I'm trying to get that last bit replaced with a slightly cleaner formulation. Due to the last-minute pressures of coordination between Elisabeth, the NC and me, I never did get to fix the abbreviations in the way that Bob suggested. > >Jon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:52:19 -0500 From: Eric Brunner Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Mr. Love, The suggestion to allocate 6-10 along DNSO constituency lines is not one I find compelling. First, it means that WG-C could not find a means to an end -- providing to the NC, hence the DNSO as a body and the ICANN Board, some answer to any question more complicated than how many power centers are there in the DNSO. The WG-C charter doesn't task WG-C to go off and find the one true metric of relative political power within the DNSO, oddly, it tasks those who accept its framework with finding answers to questions of: 1. scale, rate, order, subsequent mechanism, and charter, 2. process and regulation 3. governance, characterization, existence, the intellectual property regime, whois, and obligations Punting on _that_ question and comming up with an answer that simply recites the intent at Berlin (May '99) and not its realization or the current balence of forces isn't much of an answer even to that question. Second, it means that as a body, the NC is only as good as its best constituency. If no constituency determines that long-term industrial net peace requires labor to have formal equity in the DNS with capital, then the plan for the gTLD ".union" will have to be recast somewhere under the ILO portion of .INT, outside of the gTLD "space" (and most constructions of "net visibility" or relevence). Human rights, in particular the right to organize, whether under ILO 169 (Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989), or the broader notion of right to assemble in the context of the sale of labor, isn't something any DNSO constituency has bothered much to advance. .SUCKS may have more sex appeal then .UNION, but did you want consumer ire as your organizing principle, or labor organization? You may not get a second bite of the apple for some time. Third, it means that as a body of bodies, ICANN is only as good as the DNSO constituencies each in isolation. The Board has no discretionary capacity to act on the issue of new gTLDs, all discretionary capacity to act resides in the DNSO constituencies. Fourth, it means that ICANN will not acquire new constituencies through the mechanism of gTLD addition, unless some constituency allows this. You are free of course to advocate a course action most likely to result in the frustration of your earlier stated aims. The proposition that WG-C not find a means to an end -- the hard bits of responding to the charter questions, has been offered previously. This is the core thesis of the "free market" position, articulated in Position Paper B, and of course many good people frustrated by difficulty and by design, will convince themselves of the wisdom of grasping at straws. I suggest you (and all who haven't yet) actually read Position Papers B and E, and consider the question of what can be specified -- these are two extremes of a question of methodology. [The Meuller-Brunner mutual distaste arises out of more than just a distain for Indians, or for some college.] Then I suggest you (all) also read Position Papers A and D, and consider the question of what the best approach to the framework posed by the charter, and what a compromise might look like. You can read Position Paper C, or the current IPC Cairo texts (a better choice). It would be nice if your questions reflected an understanding of the WG-C interim report, even if you think everyone has the wrong end of the stick. If you want help figuring out what you don't know, ask. You can form your own opinion on the utility of the advice offered at your leisure, and that will be your best guide as to what (or who) is useful and what (or who) is not. You are of course free to disregard this advise also. The same applies to the "Eureka@SlashDot" nonsense. Kitakitamatsinopowaw, Eric ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 10:11:56 -0500 From: James Love Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Christopher Ambler wrote: > > It would also make it into a buyable beauty contest, subject > to serious corruption and capture. And your alternative is? > > -- > Christopher Ambler > chris@the.web > > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-wg-c@dnso.org [mailto:owner-wg-c@dnso.org]On Behalf Of James > Love > Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 7:09 PM > To: wg-c@dnso.org > Subject: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed > > There are a large number of proposals for TLDs. If ICANN begins with > the WG-C proposal of 6 to 10 testbed TLDs, it will be pretty hard to > decide which TLDs go first. > > Assuming that the testbed is simply the first step in a real expansion > of the TLD space (as were the first testbed registrars for .com, .net > and .org), it may not be extremely important which ones go first, but it > will probably be important enough to be controversial. > > I propose the decision making be decentralized. I would recommend 3 be > selected by the business/registrar constituencies, 3 by the > non-commercial domain holders, and 3 selected by the ICANN at large > members, in an online vote. That's 9, and the 10th could be selected in > some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or > something else. This would provide a simple way to reduce the power > that any one group would have, and it would probably also lead to some > diversity in the types of management structures considered in the first > round. > > Jamie > > ----------------------- > James Love, Consumer Project on Technology > P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org > Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org > Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 - -- ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 10:22:55 -0500 From: James Love Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Dave Crocker wrote: > The basic idea of having a broad effort is quite reasonable. The problem > with your particular choices are that, as noted, there won't be an > operational at-large mechanism for something. The other problem is that > there has not been a particularly active, and certainly not coherent, and > most especially not representative, non-commercial domain holder's > constituency. If someone wants the "perfect" solution, then they should invent something else, because I would agree that mine has flaws. I think if you identified the groups that would decide, they would end up with decisions. If the registrars and business constituency had to agree on 3 TLDs, they would probably come up with 3 they could live with. Even with lots of blood on the floor. If the non-commerical domain holders could choose 3, they would become pretty active, and at the end of the day, 3 names would emerge. Probably with some blood on the floor too, but what is the alternative - -- to give the decision to the ICANN board? For the voting proposal. ICANN does have a membership system. It is in place. If there was a "ballot" on 3 TLDS, it would give people a reason to register as a member. It's open and free right now. It may have flaws, but compared to what? The ballot proposal could include proposals, that included management systems. If there were more than one management proposal, you could add the votes to make the "cut" and then have a run off on the different proposals. Or you could just take the top 3 votes, including the proposed management structure. > Having already participated in an effort to produce a list of 7 names, I'm > disinclined to do it again, myself. > > >some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or > > You would consider giving the rogue registry participants -- the folks who > tried to replace the IANA DNS root system -- special position??? I've never taken a position on the "pioneer" or "rogue" registry proposals. I don't know enough about this to make an informed decision one way or the other. I'm not sure I want to. I was just pointing out that the three methods I suggested need not be exclusive. Jamie ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 07:45:03 -0800 From: Dave Crocker Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed At 10:22 AM 3/22/00 -0500, James Love wrote: > If someone wants the "perfect" solution, then they should invent >something else, because I would agree that mine has flaws. James, When creating or fielding design criticisms, it is often very helpful to distinguish between comments of the flavor "I don't like detail X" or "Detail X would be better with choice A", versus one of the nature "Detail X won't work". The former gets into the realm of design preference. The latter gets into the realm of viability. My comments were intended to be the latter. For the most point, matters of design aesthetics are up to the proponent to justify. Matters of infeasibility are not. If a thing won't work, it won't work. In other words: > I think if you identified the groups that would decide, they would >end up with decisions. I agree, hence my statement of support for the basic idea, though the concerns that Brunner state are non-trivial and entirely valid. > If the non-commerical domain holders could choose 3, they would The essential non-existence of that group as a functioning group is not a minor or subjective point. Hence continuing to assert that they will make decisions, is much like the famous joke about finishing a complicated formula by saying "and then a miracle happens". We need to be careful about designing things that have fragile, time-sensitive or unlikely dependencies. > For the voting proposal. ICANN does have a membership system. It is It has the framework for one. It does not have one that is functioning. Hence your proposal pretty much assures that it will be nearly a year to get a set of names from the at large group. > > >some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or > > > > You would consider giving the rogue registry participants -- the folks who > > tried to replace the IANA DNS root system -- special position??? > > I've never taken a position on the "pioneer" or "rogue" registry >proposals. I don't know enough about this to make an informed decision >one way or the other. I'm not sure I want to. Interesting perspective for someone proffered as a consumer advocate. At any rate, please forgive the misunderstanding. What DID you mean about 'a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals'. d/ =-=-=-=-= Dave Crocker Brandenburg Consulting Tel: +1.408.246.8253, Fax: +1.408.273.6464 675 Spruce Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 08:42:07 -0800 From: "Mark C. Langston" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 10:22:55AM -0500, James Love wrote: > > If someone wants the "perfect" solution, then they should invent > something else, because I would agree that mine has flaws. > > I think if you identified the groups that would decide, they would > end up with decisions. If the registrars and business constituency had > to agree on 3 TLDs, they would probably come up with 3 they could live > with. Even with lots of blood on the floor. > > If the non-commerical domain holders could choose 3, they would > become pretty active, and at the end of the day, 3 names would emerge. > Probably with some blood on the floor too, but what is the alternative > -- to give the decision to the ICANN board? > The alternative is not "please choose three TLDs that best serve your groups' own fiscal needs/goals", as you've proposed. I wouldn't be surprised if they required that you allow them to choose the registry to host the TLD as well. You might as well say, "Here: Each of the groups on this list may administer X many TLDs for profit. Enjoy." This exercise isn't supposed to be about who can position themselves to make the most money for themselves or their represented interests; it's supposed to be about doing what's good for the Internet. The constituencies aren't General Motors, and this isn't America. > For the voting proposal. ICANN does have a membership system. It is > in place. If there was a "ballot" on 3 TLDS, it would give people a > reason to register as a member. It's open and free right now. It may > have flaws, but compared to what? Actually, the membership system is NOT in place. Nobody has received the mailings that were supposed to follow the initial on-line registration, becuase ICANN has not mailed them yet. There is no At-Large membership, period. ICANN never followed through. > > The ballot proposal could include proposals, that included > management systems. If there were more than one management proposal, > you could add the votes to make the "cut" and then have a run off on the > different proposals. Or you could just take the top 3 votes, including > the proposed management structure. The TLDs should be separate from the business model petitions. There is no reason whatsoever to tie them, and to do so may impart both an unfair advantage as well as an illusion of 'ownership'. - -- Mark C. Langston mark@bitshift.org Systems & Network Admin San Jose, CA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 12:03:24 -0500 From: Kendall Dawson Subject: [wg-c] re: Choosing the intial testbed I agree that it should be decentralized - but not in the exact way that James has proposed. My person feeling is that the general public should choose the TLDs/registry by a vote. It seems the only democratic way to do this. Rather than telling people -- "here are the 10 choices" why not have a Net-wide Web poll (sponsored by DNSO) to decide this matter? This way ICANN gets the general public involved, the business/commercial interest does not get to make the choice for the public - and no one can come back later complaining - "we weren't offered any choice". This method could be used whether the registries are chosen first, or the TLD strings are chosen first. If the registries are asked to apply first - we offer a list of say 100 registries and the string they propose to run. The public then votes on these - and the top 10 are implemented. If we go the other route - and the TLD strings are chosen first - we put up a list of 100 strings. The public votes on which ones they want. The top 10 are chosen. Then, the registries bid on who will run them. I know that Paul already has a poll going over at Name-Space. But, this is not "officially sanctioned" by DNSO. If ICANN were to offer something similar to this as an "official" poll that will used to gauge the interests of the public -- we could avoid a lot of the back-and-forth fighting of which ones to add. Just my opinion. Kendall On 22-Mar-2000 James Love wrote: - --------------------------- > I propose the decision making be decentralized. I would recommend 3 be > selected by the business/registrar constituencies, 3 by the > non-commercial domain holders, and 3 selected by the ICANN at large > members, in an online vote. That's 9, and the 10th could be selected in > some other way. Perhaps a lottery by those with "pioneer" proposals, or > something else. This would provide a simple way to reduce the power > that any one group would have, and it would probably also lead to some > diversity in the types of management structures considered in the first > round. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:56:54 -0800 From: Kent Crispin Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 07:45:03AM -0800, Dave Crocker wrote: [...] > > I agree, hence my statement of support for the basic idea, though the > concerns that Brunner state are non-trivial and entirely valid. > > > > If the non-commerical domain holders could choose 3, they would > > The essential non-existence of that group as a functioning group is not a > minor or subjective point. I suspect you may have read "individual domain name holders" for "non-commercial domain name holders". The former, as you state, not in existence as a meaningful group. The latter, however, is a functioning constituency. > > For the voting proposal. ICANN does have a membership system. It is > > It has the framework for one. It does not have one that is > functioning. Hence your proposal pretty much assures that it will be > nearly a year to get a set of names from the at large group. Yes. There are other problems with tying name proposals to votes of a large body, as well. But, like you, I think that Jamie's basic approach is well worth working on. Here are some hopefully constructive observations: I think everybody agrees that there should be a defined process for addition of TLD names to the root zone. If we just use ad hoc votes to select names for the initial rollout, we will not have done anything to define a process. It would be nice to minimize adhoc-ness as much as possible, because if we don't deal with the procedural issues now we will be stuck with them later...there is of course some unavoidable uniqueness to the initial rollout. TLD name selection really should *not* be a popularity contest. Whatever procedure there is in place really must allow for the creation of small, special-purpose TLDs. Moreover, there should be at least some development of *reasons* for a particular TLD name. An underlying motif in Jamie's suggestion is that the process would be subdivided by interest groups, who would propose their own TLD suggestions, presumably after some internal deliberation. His proposal "blesses" a subset of the constituencies, and, while there is some superficial appeal to that approach, I see lots of problems with that particular approach -- I'm not sure (for example) why some constituencies were selected and others were left out. In general, we would like TLD proposals to come from groups that are cohesive enough to come to agreement on reasonable proposals for names, but large enough and open enough so that the issues get a good airing. Large, diverse groups will have difficulty coming to decisions. I would, therefore, propose that the long term mechanism by which TLD names are proposed is that TLD Working Groups of the DNSO would be formed. The purpose of an individual TWG would be to produce a formal proposal for a TLD name (or possibly a set of names). The proposal would include a justification, description of the group to be served and how the TLD would serve them, perhaps a charter, perhaps a proposed registry or sponsoring organization. Anyone could form such a WG -- an organization like Jamie's, CORE could form one to propose one or more of their TLDs, etc etc. The idea is that *someone* has to produce a written proposal that will go, eventually, to the ICANN board for final approval -- we don't want "back-door" processes. Those proposals should be prepared through some kind of defined ICANN process, with opportunity for public input and comment on the way. The DNSO WG is the cannonical vehicle for such things. It might be claimed that WG-C is the obvious vehicle for such things. It is not. The WGs I have in mind are real WGs, where group document preparation is the modus operandi. They have to be small enough and specialized enough so that they can actually get some work done. Note that production of a proposal would not mean that it was accepted. - -- Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be kent@songbird.com lonesome." -- Mark Twain ------------------------------ End of WG-C-DIGEST V1 #58 *************************