Re: [ifwp] Re: announcement from the Berkman Center

[Jim Dixon <jdd@matthew.uk1.vbc.net>]

On Sun, 30 Aug 1998, Dave Crocker wrote:

> At 07:58 AM 8/30/98 +0100, Jim Dixon wrote:
> >You gloss over the fact that disputes about the DNS have grown louder
> 
> Jim, when conducting reasoned discourse, it is useful to refrain from
> hyperbole.  I didn't "gloss" over anything since I didn't go into any
> details at all.

Dave, that's precisely what glossing over is: a hopeful summary, all 
the unpleasant details swept out of sight.
  
>                I offered an opinion about the current state of affairs,
> based on a pattern of interactions and evolution.  Given that I was part of
> the IAHC, which represented an effort to establish a compromise on a topic
> that had been contentious for some years, I'm hardly likely to deny that
> there are difficulties.  Equally, I'm not likely to ignore that IANA has
> made considerable efforts to find resolution to those difficulties.  

If it has, it has failed.

> However the DNS topic is only one of a range of issues and the fact that
> this particular issue isn't resolved yet is tough to blame solely on IANA.

This isn't a matter of blame.  It's a matter of success or failure.
The fact is that IANA as it is presently constituted has not coped 
well with the DNS mess.  We need what the White Paper has called for:
an infusion of the expertise that IANA lacks and the legitimacy that
comes from a broad and diverse membership.

> Personally I'm far more inclined to blame the astonishingly problematic
> decision by NSF to permit NSI an uncontrolled commercial monopoly over a
> valuable service, as well as Magaziner's unfortunate decision to give
> legitimacy to a wide range of otherwise-marginal constituencies.  

Yes, I know.  Otherwise-marginal constituencies like the Internet trade
associations of the world and general business interests like the 
Confederation of British Industry, with 250,000 member businesses.

> I mention my own point of view not to assert that I am undeniably correct
> -- although we all of course know that I am... -- but to point out that
> your own assessment is not merely simplistic but seriously doubtful.
> 
> >and louder over the last few years; that .US is a shambles; that there
> 
> Amidst the frequent hyperbole about .us, there is a tendency to miss the
> distinction between "needs to be better" versus "is entirely useless".  In
> fact, .us is quite a popular TLD and it's difficult to reconcile this
> object fact with the subjective assessment of "shambles".

I am sure that you can find a scattered few to sing the praises of .US,
but it's odd city-county-state structure is generally regarded as a 
resounding failure.
 
> The view that we would not have a gTLD issue if only .us were in better
> shape is to entirely miss the desire by many end-users to have a name that
> is independent of a national identification, as witnessed by the growing
> use of gTLDs outside of the US.

In fact in countries like the UK where the national TLD registry is well
run, the gTLDs lose.  My (UK-based) company registers names in both .UK 
and .COM/NET/ORG.   When Nominet took over .UK, registrations switched 
immediately out of the gTLDs and into .UK.

However, this is not the point.

The point really is that in an effort to solve the gTLD problem, IANA 
created and blessed a movement which embraced confrontational politics, 
a MOUvement whose spokesmen relished conflict and divided the world into 
two camps.  Those who supported the gTLD MOU were praised; those who 
opposed it were subjected to vilification and relentless public, personal 
attacks.  This is a major cause of the DNS wars.  

What was needed was openness, consensus, conciliation, compromise.  
Instead we got Us and Them.  

At any point IANA could have taken steps to defuse the confrontation.
It should have.  It didn't.

> >is growing opposition to commercial exploitation of certain ccTLDs; and
> 
> "growing"?  as opposed to the growing popularity of those very same ccTLDs?

You may not have noticed, but the capture of certain ccTLDs (.TM, etc) by 
private interests is causing an increasing amount of complaint .

> >As I said in the email that you are responding to, what I have learned
> >from conversations with those in the wider world of business and 
> >government in Europe, is that they are if anything MORE interested in 
> >the stability of the existing services than those of a more technical
> 
> In fact, that was the resounding feedback in the Singapore meeting,

Yes it was.  Which makes your argument that only the "Ins" care about
and can be trusted with the stability of the Internet a little odd.

At this point, unfortunately, it seems that calls for stability and
caution come from the Outs, while the Ins scurry around dismantling 
the IANA and threatening to fragment the core of the Internet.

You know that I have argued for a long time that NSI is an unwarranted
monopoly which should be broken up as soon as possible.  I find it 
somehow monstrous that at this point NSI has become the voice of reason
and reconciliation, that their draft articles reflect the consensus of
the open IFWP conferences while IANA's ignore them.

The consensus of the Brussels meeting sponsored by the European 
Commission and of the Panel of Participants appointed to refine these
results and deliver them to the Geneva IFWP conference was that the 
new corporation should have a membership, that the Board should elected
by and be accountable to that membership, that the Board's powers should
be carefully restricted.  None of this is reflected in IANA's articles
and bylaws.  All of it is there in the NSI bylaws.

This is not to say that I approve entirely of the NSI proposal.  But it
comes much closer to what Europe finds acceptable in this process.  And
that, as I said above, is somehow monstrous to me.  How can it be that 
IANA is so ill-advised?

>                                                                   after
> some hours of distraction by the ORSC proposal to make individual root
> server operators the ones to decide what is in the root.
> 
> >At this point the Internet is having profound effects on society at
> 
> Thank you for that bit of pedagogy, Jim.  I'm sure we are now all more
> enlightened.

Dave, do you have anything to offer at this point in the debate other 
than casual insults and stories about the supposed golden years of the 
Internet?  What we need is an end to confrontation politics.  What we
need is not an Internet divided into hostile camps, but compromise and
conciliation.  You are arguing for more of the same.  It is compromise 
and an end to conflict which is on offer in Cambridge.

--
Jim Dixon                                                 Managing Director
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