Adrian: The key word is “cooperating”. New.net (and its brethren that are being born in technology incubators as we speak) are not “cooperating”, they’re intentionally “culture-jamming” for their own gain.
-Mat Butler
Speaking for himself, not his company
Adrian: The key word is "cooperating". New.net (and its brethren that are
being born in technology incubators as we speak) are not "cooperating",
they're intentionally "culture-jamming" for their own gain.
Strange .. three replies, three mis-interpratations from what
I meant. Ok, lets try to restate and clarify what I was trying
to say.
Hrm. Somewhere along the line I remember the Internet being defined
as a bunch of networks cooperating in order to exchange information.When did that change?
I'm not referring to us cooperating with new.net . Thats so the
opposite scale of what I meant.
I'll be happy when more companies start to see that they canactually
make money by fostering internet growth rather than making money by
abusing internet growth.
.. and new.net aren't fostering internet growth, are they? 
When I said "a bunch of networks cooperating to exchange information"
this kind of includes having a consistent view of naming, a
unique view of address ranges and a standard set of protocols
between networks.
Now, when did *that* change?
Adrian, noting that he's a problem solver, not an english major..
Perhaps you might like to define "cooperating" for us? Has ICANN
cooperated with the individuals and organizations that currently run
alternate TLDs which predate the existence of ICANN? Or is it
rather simply that "might makes right" and they only need to cooperate
with "people that matter?"
At some point cooperation has to yield to due process - at least that's
the history of society to date. Unless there's a major change to the
Internet infrastructure, we need DNS to function reliably, and that
requires that the root nameservers behave the way they're supposed to.
Just as key pieces of the telephone system are REQUIRED to behave in
certain ways - as negotiated through well defined and legally sanctioned
processes, and enforced by the ITU and various national level authorities
- so must key pieces of the Internet be under the jurisdiction of clearly
defined processes and authorities. The Internet is no longer an experiment
that people can mess around with with impunity. Right now, like it or not,
ICANN is the duly authorized authority for Internet naming and numbering.
Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I don't see any problem with anything you have said. I think the
difficulty comes when I tell you that the root servers I choose to use are
operating fine, and you attempt to tell me that I have to use yours.
Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spit in awe as Patrick Greenwell exclaimed:
Perhaps you might like to define "cooperating" for us? Has ICANN
cooperated with the individuals and organizations that currently run
alternate TLDs which predate the existence of ICANN? Or is it
rather simply that "might makes right" and they only need to cooperate
with "people that matter?"
I cannot say that I agree wholeheartedly with ICANN's decision making process. However, New.Net's way of creating new TLDs is *not* the way to do it! Furthermore, attempting to circumvent ICANN and the current DNS system is *not* going to get New.Net any brownie points with them, and most certainly isn't going to help get new TLDs established in the proper DNS root.
Besides, why can't you face the fact that this isn't some rebellion against ICANN? It's nothing more than a money scam. I seriously doubt that New.Net or it's investors care about ICANN or it's politics. Somebody got an idea, saw dollar signs, and the marketroids went wild. This kind of greed, IMNSHO, contributes largely to the poor performance of dotcom/tech stocks currently.
If the marketroids are going to have this level of control over the technical aspects of the Internet, why don't we all just march over to the marketing department, hand them our root and enable passwords, and tell them, "Ok, you created this mess, now run the fscking thing yourself!" and take a _long_ vacation?
Jeff
For the Internet to work, at least with currently accepted DNS standards,
everyone has to use the same root servers. Otherwise things can rapidly
degenerate into chaos. The whole point of law and due process is that
a duly authorized somebody has to have the authority to insist that
everyone use the same root servers.
Somehow, I really don't think the founding fathers had that in mind.
Of any country.
Somehow I think that's EXACTLY what the founding fathers had in mind:
"The Congress shall have power to ... fix the standard of weights and
measures" U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Par. 5
Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spit in awe as Shawn McMahon exclaimed:
<no humour whatsoever>
"We the network operators, in order to provide a functioning Internet so
as to justify doing really cool things with really expensive toys...."
I don't know what your job entails, but my job description includes the
phrase "keeping the network and all associated servers and services
functional." Which means, among other things, making sure DNS
works. Were I to go with new.net, I would be remiss in my duties
and should (though I probably wouldn't) be fired.
MAtthew Devney
Network Operator (among other things)
So which are the root servers, a unit of weight, or a unit of length?
I buy that as a reason for you not to use them, and I buy that as a reason
for me not to use them.
I don't buy it as a reason to make what they're doing illegal, which is
what a few in this discussion are advocating.
That'd be like making IPX illegal, because it prevents those machines
from properly interoperating with TCP/IP.
While I don't advocate making it illegal (well, not moreso than I do
for any other irresponsible act), your analogy misses the mark. I fail
to see how I could enter an IP address as a destination and have it go
to a different destination because the IPX network carried it there.
*waits for tongue-in-cheek replies about tunneling*
-c
Shawn McMahon <smcmahon@eiv.com> asked,
>
Somehow I think that's EXACTLY what the founding fathers had in mind:
"The Congress shall have power to ... fix the standard of weights and
measures" U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Par. 5So which are the root servers, a unit of weight, or a unit of length?
Why limit oneself? It is reasonable to assume that the successful deployment of a root server represents a milestone.
1 mile = 5280 feet
1 stone = 14 pounds
Therefore, a milestone is equal to 73920 foot pounds. Convert to your preferred units.
And we were talking to New.net today about 800lb gorillas in the marketplace. I wish I'd seen this sooner. 
Best Regards,
Simon Higgs
That is a nice fantasy statement. Could you cite chapter and verse for this please? The exact references where this "authority" and "due process" actually exists? There are a large number of folk (including ICANN board members) who would like to see it and take part in the "due process".
The Internet was designed to work in a chaotic environment and route packets around points of failure. There is no-one who has authority to intervene along a packet's path to it's destination. In fact, it's a federal crime to intervene in that process (US vs. Kashpureff). Even legal wire taps do not interfere with the packet's route. So who has the right to intercept my DNS query and send it to a set of root servers I didn't specify?
The only real authority for any root system is the holder of the root password for the master server, and whomever that root password-holder is prepared to trust for authorative information. Each member of the Internet community may make up their own on which root to use. That is confirmed in RFC 2826.
So I ask you, again, where is this fictional authority that absolutely mandates your compliance to a non-voluntary root server? Because whoever it is, by your blind acceptance, also has absolute control of your rights to language and speech within the DNS, and you totally forfeit your First Amendment rights (in the US anyway) to that authority.
Best Regards,
Simon Higgs
hmm yes okay but are you aware that the usa doesnt make up the largest
part of the internet, the rest of the world does? the congress has no
power there..
Steve