Re: [ifwp] Re: NSI's role

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
To: IFWP Discussion List <list@ifwp.org>
Date: Thursday, September 03, 1998 10:10 AM
Subject: [ifwp] Re: NSI's role


>On Thu, Sep 03, 1998 at 06:46:49AM -0400, cgomes@internic.net wrote:
>> Kent,
>> 
>> My apologies if I came across unprofessional, but I really
>> did not understand what "moral authority" meant and still
>> don't as it relates to IANA.  It's the term moral in this
>> context that is unclear to me.
>
>It's the moral equivalent of "goodwill".  Through a series of 
>accidents of history, the IANA developed, it has occupied a certain 
>role, and people have come to trust it in that role, because it has 
>given evidence of being trustworthy.  Such a relationship takes a 
>long time to build up.
>
>But we all know this.
>


I hope that you agree that the IANA (new or old)
does not control/manage/allocate all names and
numbers in the world or for that matter on the
Internet. For example, Certificate Authorities sell
numbers to companies that use them in their
clients and servers for doing secure transactions.
They do not get those numbers from the IANA.

Likewise, RSCs (and GRS people) now make the
decisions about what TLDs are supported on the
Internet. The IANA does not make that decision.
As we approach the day when the legacy Root
Name Server Cluster is free from U.S. Government
control, I would imagine that the "new" TLDs would
spend time educating everyone about all of the
RSCs that they have market share in. It may turn
out that the legacy RSC is the laggard when it
comes to leading edge internet features. If ISPs
want to continue to use that RSC, that is their
business.

In another arena, IPv4 address allocations, the
various regional registries (RIPE, APNIC, ARIN,
etc.), the major companies and the U.S. Government
have pretty much carved up the IPv4 address space.
ARIN is requesting comments on its role in
managing the "remaining" space. With all of the
people now managing that space, the IANA has
little or no role.

@@@@ http://www.arin.net/openletter.html

"Part of ARIN's charter is its responsibility to its members
and the rest of the Internet community to administer the
remaining IPv4 address space and Autonomous System
numbers in such a way as to enable the continued stability
of the Internet."

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@


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