As an owner of several .ORG domains, I am glad to see
ICANN listening to our feedback on this issue.Managing any TLD is a great responsbility,
one that cannot be undertaken lightly. The IMS/ISC team is joint effort of people
who have a solid background as builders of the Internet's infrastructure. The team
is well known and respected by those who have been around the Internet for many years.
They know what it means to operate a root server. They are currently providing DNS
hosting for 19 ccTLDs, 3 legacy gTLDs, and the F root server. They have produced
and supported the BIND software, the critical software running most domain name servers
globally. They know the domain name system extremely well.
Besides their direct
involvement with producing and or supporting BIND, DHCP, and INN software, IMS/ISC
team also provide hosting for the various projects such as Lynx Web Browser, the
NetBSD Foundation, the OpenLDAP Foundation, the IETF User Services Area, the XFree86
Project, and the Linux Kernel Archives. The team understands large scale database
development and management.
In addition, IMS/ISC team is a Not-for-profit organization,
which is exactly who we want managing a (generally) not-for-profit TLD. While at
least one of the candidates is already looking at ways to make money from this task,
the IMS/ISC "Intent to Donate" 8% to the IETF and IAB is another unique approach
to assuring ongoing infrastructure improvements of the global Internet.
In short,
IMS/ISC team is extremely technologically talented, innovative, highly ethical and
focused on enhancing the Internet infrastructure. I can think of no better foundation
to serve as the manager of a TLD.
-coranth