While there's a lot of posturing going on right now,
I have a few questions and issues that I feel are relatively
substantive that i'd like to see answered or discussed.
First of all, it concerns me greatly that the IAHC/iPOC process
has resulted so far in more legalese regarding how apparently
unbinding yet binding challenge panels regarding domain names
are to be empowered than working code or protocols related to
the actual implimentation of the new TLDs and their servers
and registries. In an amongst the policy disputes, we seem
to have entirely lost the "old" way, and this is not a good
development for anyone. I would like a clear status update
on implimentation from the iPOC people... I'd love to be
shown to be wrong on this one, having the actual work
underpublicized is bad but not nearly as serious, but I would
like to know.
Secondly, I am somewhat dismayed by some of the iPOC (and other)
positions regarding the solidness of grounding of support for
the IAHC and iPOC process and its lack of acknowledgement for
the chaotic path that got us this far. Remember the numberous
draft RCFs by Jon Postel, and Karl Denninger. There were a couple
of times we thought we had consensus and proceeded to lose it.
What we have ended up with in the MOU is far different from what
we started out looking for, and in fact had come very close to
agreeing to more than once. This is not to say I disagree with
the MOU; the political realities of the world and the internet
and their interactions have shifted, and the MOU reflects that.
However, in particular regarding .WEB, it would be very wise
to recall that when the origional application was made by Chris
Ambler the consensus of "the rules' were far different from what
it is today. Refusal of iPOC to bend and acknowledge that is
unfortunate, and refusal of Chris to bend and acknowledge that
the world shifted would be equally unfortunate. I suggest that
in this particular case iPOC make a finding that Chris had a
valid prexisting application for .WEB before the process changed,
and recognize the precedence of his existing .WEB registrants.
I would hope that Chris can understand that sole proprietorship
of any GTLD is now deemed inapropriate (and probably rightly so),
and with an iPOC finding as described above would agree to sign
the MOU and become one of perhaps many .WEB registrars in the
resulting framework, with the rights of his existing customers
acknowledged and grandfathered in as the initial set of
registered .WEB second level domains.
As a side issue, those claiming that his claim on .WEB has been
shot down just because a couple of hours of oral argument failed
to generate a temporary restraining order should not be so
confident; it's not at all rare for better prepared further
testimony to change the trial outcome from what a TRO or injunction
hearing ruled.
As a final note, to those advocating the "alternative constellations"
of root servers, I offer the following observation:
You are completely useless unless your roots are a
coordinated superset of the IANA-blessed roots, don't contradict
one another, and meet the reliability specifications we've
discussed to death over the last 18 months or so. Right now,
none of those three is true overall and it appears that for
many of the alternate groups none of them are true. If you
cannot all get together and make them all true, for at least
some significant subset of the "confederations", stop trying
to play and go home. The objective factors involved do not
change with political arguments among you: if you cannot meet
them then you are wasting your time trying.
-george william herbert
gherbert@crl.com
Speaking only for myself