Re: A point of agreement (Re: [ga-roots] response to responsetoresponse)

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>]

At 21:57 29.05.2001 -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:
>Harald:
>to put it another way: Leah Gallegos is upset that .biz got allocated in
>the ICANN process that she chose not to participate in. Whether that
>constitutes a conflict or not is in the eye of the beholder.
>
>MM:
>You can't have it both ways. Either alternate roots
>such as Leah's are threats to the integrity of the
>Internet, or they are "not really conflicts."
>Which is it?

Leah does not have the power to threaten the integrity of the Internet, IMHO.
new.net might have that power, given its larger budget.
A change in ICANN's policy to accomodate "alternate" roots would, IMHO, 
threaten the integrity of the Internet naming system, as perceived by users.

Whether you call one person/company raging at the operation of another 
company a conflict or not depends on your use of words.

>Harald:
>No problem has yet been identified where it is clear that separate roots is
>the solution. See the message from CNNIC I forwarded earlier.
>
>MM:
>I saw that message and pointed out to you that
>CNNIC is doing exactly what New.net is doing.
>(Your repl, as I recall, was "oh.")

Your response:

>I was amused by the CN-NIC response. It is IDENTICAL to the way New.net 
>describes what they are doing. The only possible difference is that CN-NIC 
>describes it as an "experiment" that is limited to a smaller population, 
>whereas New.net is clearly aiming at a mass market.

My response:

>A very important difference of presentation.
>The CNNIC is (to my mind) anxious to be seen as wanting to be cooperative,
>and would love nothing better than to have what they desire without having 
>to set up a separate root.
>But if they have to do that, they want to know how it is done, and what 
>the consequences are - which means that they want to have run the experiment.

I don't think you responded to that.
If you want to quote me, at least do it accurately.

>Harald:
>Well, aren't you [an enthusiastic proponent of
>abandoning a single root]? (only half kidding)
>You certainly don't seem to be a proponent of defending it.
>
>MM:
><sigh>
>I am a proponent of competition and freedom.
>ICANN stifles competition, WIPO is out to regulate
>DNS to death, and ISPs and registries may defect from ICANN's root because 
>of that. Is that position
>so hard to grasp?

The position is not hard to grasp. It is also possible to disagree with.

>If ICANN does a bad job of managing the root - if it's
>too restrictive, unfair, and doesn't listen to the
>consumers and suppliers and its own bottom up
>processes, alternate roots will thrive.

If ICANN does a bad job, as measured by the users' response, alternate 
roots may thrive. Or they may die because they are a fundamentally broken 
idea and add no benefit to the consumer, even if ICANN does not do its work 
well.

The main reason I continue mailing on the subject is because the ICANN 
bottom up process needs to have MY input as well as YOUR input; while I am 
strongly in favour of you having the ability to argue a point of view I 
disagree with, I am strongly OPPOSED to having that point of view 
represented as "the result of ICANN's bottom up policy".

>New.net is
>a signal that ICANN didn't do it right. The letter
>from the new head of the Commerce Dept is another
>such sign.

you mean http://www.icann.org/correspondence/doc-to-icann-25may01.htm ?

I didn't see much conflict represented there.

>  The restiveness in Asia is another. What we
>need to do is recognize facts.

Asia is a convenient target because it is reasonably far away from most of 
the debaters, so assertions are not so easily checked.
So far, I have seen ONLY Asian efforts to do IDN - and as I said, there has 
not yet been a technical question to which an alternate root is clearly the 
answer in that problem space.

What we need to do is to recognize facts, and CHECK them.

....


>I could be wrong. I'd appreciate a debate on the
>merits of that question. I do not want to listen
>to the533rd repetition of the RFC 2826 mantra.

And I don't want to listen to the 10246th repetition of the "alternate 
roots are good for you" mantra. But it doesn't seem that we have much choice.

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