Re: State of Nature & the Regulation of TLDs

["Jim Fleming" <JimFleming@unety.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>
To: Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>
Cc: discussion-draft@giaw.org <discussion-draft@giaw.org>
Date: Saturday, July 18, 1998 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: State of Nature & the Regulation of TLDs


>Karl:
>I don't understand why anybody would want to grant the new Entity immunity
from
>antitrust law. At this point, antitrust law is the only hope we have that a
>small clique of stakeholders will not sew up the authoritative root zone
files
>in ways that preclude competition.
>
>Besides, this is a settled issue. The White Paper explicitly addressed it
and
>said, Yes, the new organization -will- be subject to antitrust discipline.
>
>Less importantly, but something that nags on me: is there any reason why
>California is constantly discussed as the site of incorporation--other than
>that Jon Postel happens to live there? This is beginning to irritate me.
With
>all due respect to past accomplishments, we are not creating the Entity to
>accommodate any individual's geographic preferences. To talk in these terms
>puts the cart before the horse. We define the organization and its
functions,
>we incorporate it, we create an interim board, and then we decide where
it's
>located. Right?
>
>--Milton Mueller
>


Milton,

Jon Postel (aka IANA) always seems to get these things backwards.
I think that it comes from years of assuming that all of the resources
are HIS and that other people have to come to him to obtain the
resources. Look at his proposed By-Laws, they are backwards.
They describe a company that has all of the resources and that
will enter the business of doling those resources out. That is the
structure one would expect for a "for-profit" company.

http://www.iana.org/bylaws.html

Let's explore how a normal "non-profit" gets started. Let's see how
the horse can be placed before the cart. Then let's compare that to
the proposed By-Laws.

If Jon Postel (aka IANA) was to create a real non-profit, he would
be setting up a Corporate structure that recognizes that there are
many people, organizations, and for-profit companies out in the
world who have IPv4 allocations. He would be setting up a structure
that proclaims to those people that they can come to "join" the
IANA trade association to register THEIR (not his) allocations.
They could make "donations" to the non-profit organization to help
support the organization that helps them make everyone else
aware of their allocations. The non-profit would not get into
the middle of how they buy, sell and trade those assets. It
would just register their history for them and help them all
communicate to each other.

The By-Laws that Jon Postel (aka IANA) has proposed are
better suited to a Multi-Level Markeing MLM, for-profit,
company. They are based on a pyramid model where the
IANA sits at the top collecting fees from the downstream
agencies, which they have helped to create. The By-Laws
do not start from a position that the people have any
resources or rights. It makes the assumption that this new
IANA Corporation has all of the rights. This is interesting
because that entity does not yet exist (I assume), and
therefore could not have the resources needed to cap
off the IPv4 MLM pyramid.

In the structure that I have decscribed. The new entity starts
with NOTHING. That is the way many non-profit companies
start. They scratch for every donation and volunteer support
they can find. They do not start by funding themselves with
U.S. Government assets which they then sell or lease to
generate millions of dollars in fees. The fees should come
from the people and companies with the reason to support
the non-profit coming forward to join the empty structure,
thus making it into something they want, as opposed to
what Jon Postel and the ITAG want.


Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation - http://www.unir.com


P.S.
The structure that I have described is similar to the way LDAP
servers work. The server sits there waiting for people to come
and join and to register their information. That is very different
from the DNS model. In the DNS system information is first
registered and then people come to look for it. It is somewhat
ironic that the DNS model better fits "for-profit" corporate
models and the LDAP model fits the "non-profit" corporate
model. Here we are in DNS discussions with people claiming
that non-profit is the way to go and they do so with regard to
the DNS. They would be better off with an LDAP world.