Re: [wg-c] straw vote -- question one results & call for votes on

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Aug 20, 1999 at 12:15:41AM -0700, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> > I do
> > believe that the tender should be re-bid on a periodic period
> > (much like
> > what should happen with com/net/org which was a 5 year
> > contract, despite
> > NSI claiming the contrary).
> 
> I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. There ain't nobody that's
> going to run a business with a five-year guaranteed out-of-business
> limit.

This happens *all the time*.  The management of the food services
contract at LLNL is rebid every 5 years.  The management of the
National Labs is rebid every 5 years -- Sandia, across the street, is
run by Lockheed-Martin; Livermore and Los Alamos are run by UC.  All
the myriad of services that can be outsourced, including payroll,
janitorial, protective service, etc, commonly rebid on a periodic
basis.  Computer services are done this way -- the management of NAS,
the NASA super computer facility, is rebid every few years.  Computer
Sciences Corporation has as its core business managing computer
centers.  Dunn&Bradstreet was interested in running the CORE
registry, but their bid was too high.  This is one of the things that
makes outsourcing so popular these days...and it makes the service 
industries highly competitive.  Precisely what we want in the 
registry business -- far more effective competition than giving 
perpetual small monopolies to people...

 > I certainly wouldn't trust the outfit that was stupid enough to
> do it and no VC group would be dumb enough to trust them with the real
> CASH it takes to start a registry.

You know, Roeland, my wife actually works for a small venture capital 
firm...it's entertaining to listen to your views on them.

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