Subject: Re: Tired of Waiting

From: "Christopher Ambler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 11:52:52 -0700

>No, it has just be denied by individuals like you who want to make
>money by getting a profitable monopoly on public resources. The bulk
>of the community has a pretty obvious interest in the other direction.

Your assessment is as inaccurate as your basis for the claim. What
is the difference between a registry making an honest profit and a
registrar making an honest profit? If both provide good service,
contractually prohibit gouging and harm to the Internet, where is the
harm?

For those of you recent to the discussion, please note that Perry was
a member of the IAHC, the group that proposed that a single registry
be created to handle all TLDs, including COM/NET/ORG (which they
carefully claimed SHOULD be a part). Their plan, as you may be aware,
called for registrars to pay $10,000 each just to participate (and still
does). They're STILL taking this money from registrars, including a
monthly fee, and they have absolutely nothing to show for it. They also
changed their internal pricing in much the same way that they claim
for-profit registries would. These are all public facts, and can be found
by reading the various archived lists.

Why do I bring this up again? Simply to show that there are seriously
different PHILOSOPHIES at work here, and they are overshadowing
the plain fact that if we could just put them aside, create a stable, fair,
open and transparent governing body, we could then come together
and resolve these problems.

But people keep bringing them up. Yes, I realize that I should just
ignore them and not reply, but when factual inaccuracies are posted
(and I'm sure Perry will claim I've done the same, natch) and
personal attacks like the above (where Perry presumes to claim
to know what it is that I want) are posted, and philosophical
opinions are taken as fact (like the namespace is a public resource),
the loudest voice seems to claim victory.

As I've said, let's stop it, and move on to more productive issues,
okay?

--
Christopher Ambler, Personal Opinion Only
--
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From: "Perry E. Metzger" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 16:17:06 -0400

> contractually prohibit gouging and harm to the Internet, where is the

If my assessment is inaccurate, would you please explain to me how,
exactly, a user of .FOO is to switch from one registrar to another
under your plan?

I don't even care about the money. What about if service is
dangerously bad? I have clients that have had serious trouble from NSI 
inaccurately cutting off their domain names. If you can't switch, you
are locked down. This is a "monopoly" in the usual jargon.

So far as I can tell, you are indeed someone who wants to get a
monopoly on a public resource.

In the U.S., we've eliminated non-portable 800 and 888 numbers. Why
should we accept non-portable domain names?

> a member of the IAHC,

And damned proud of it, I'll say.

> the group that proposed that a single registry
> does).

I think the term "distortion" comes in here.

The situation was that a shared registry was built. This cost
money. Each registrar was asked to pay its share of the costs --
nothing more, nothing less. If a company doesn't have $10,000 to its
name, it isn't even going to be able to pay for a couple of computers
and high speed internet access. This was hardly onerous.

Perry

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From: Robert Shaw <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 23:45:10 +0200

> contractually prohibit gouging and harm to the Internet, where is the

Because this is the Internet public infrastructure and not your personal
playground to make a fast buck. History has taught us a big lesson.
.com represents 85% of all gTLD registrations. There is a reason: gTLDs
are non-portable, quasi-non-interchangeable goods (imagine 'ownership'
of .inc in a world of 100 million SLD delegations). Therefore, competition 
between registries (aka gTLDs) is fantasy. So get over it. Become a registrar. 
Go forth and suffer *real* competition, not pseudo-competition because you 
have a lock on a gTLD. 

Robert
-- 
Robert Shaw <[email-masked]>
Head, a.i., IED/Advisor, Global Information Infrastructure
International Telecommunication Union <http://www.itu.int>
Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland

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From: Simon Higgs <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 04:20:43 -0700

>playground to make a fast buck. History has taught us a big lesson.

You have incorrectly stated the nature of the internet. There is no public
infrastructure (it was removed with the NSF routing tables). The internet
is entirely a private co-operative infrastructure. 

That would be a PRIVATE TRUST.	

>Go forth and suffer *real* competition, not pseudo-competition because you 

Not bad coming from someone with a solid lock on a TLD. Or is the ITU
planning on adding .INT to the CORE database? You should, as it'll be the
only TLD that actually works there.

The real reason .COM was allowed to get so large was because the IAHC
(which you were a member) completely and thoroughly screwed up. The
international community called you on it, won, and consequently there are
no new TLDs yet.

I think you, Bob, should personally take a large portion of the blame for
the .COM zone getting so big.

Best Regards,

Simon

--
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From: "Roeland M.J. Meyer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 22:54:20 -0700

>playground to make a fast buck. History has taught us a big lesson.

What lesson is that?

>of .inc in a world of 100 million SLD delegations). 

I was thinking more along the lines of each ISP eventually having their own
TLD, if for nothing more than to support their web-hosting business. It
also allows better control over VPNs, certainly an easier way to remember
them. At the moment, we are using private TLDs for this. It also lets one
build meta-nets. MHSC is on the cusp of casting such a meta-net of VPNs.
Yes, there is lock-in, but in this case, if someone wants to dis-connect
from our meta-net, we want them to remove all affiliations, including the TLD.

>Therefore, competition 

If someone doesn't like what we are doing then they can leave. They can
always go back to COM. Domain re-naming isn't nearly as bad as an IP re-number.
___________________________________________________ 
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