IP: IAB comments on Green Paper

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 11:41:39 +0000
From: Brian E Carpenter <brian () hursley ibm com>
To: ietf () ns ietf org


Note to the IETF from the IAB:


The IAB has carefully studied the US Government Green Paper
at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/dnsdrft.htm
and has considered the opinions expressed on the
IETF and other mailing lists. We have sent the attached note
to Ira Magaziner in response to the Green Paper.


The IAB will not comment on who should or should not 
be entitled to operate a gTLD registry. There is clearly no 
consensus on this in the IETF. It is also a question
affecting business practices, which is not a legitimate subject
of debate for a standards organization under anti-trust law.
The IAB was happy to nominate technical representatives to
the IAHC, and to the gTLD-MOU POC, and within reason would do
the same for any IANA-approved gTLD registry requesting technical 
advice.


> Subject: IAB comments on Green Paper
> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 11:33:41 +0000
> From: Brian E Carpenter <brian () hursley ibm com>
> To: Ira Magaziner <Ira_C._Magaziner () oa eop gov>
> CC: iab () iab org 
>
>
> To: Ira C Magaziner
> From: Internet Architecture Board
>
> Ira,
>
> 1. The IAB generally welcomes the proposal to replace US
> Government funding of the central technical administration
> of the Internet by a new non-governmental body with widely
> based, international participation. The IAB, as a technical
> group, will not take a position on details of the public policy 
> aspects of the proposal.
>
> 2. There appears to be considerable confusion in the community 
> about the definition of 'registry' as presented in this paper. 
> It is our understanding that this is meant to identify a shared 
> database for registrations in a TLD. There are no technical 
> limitations to management of such a database by multiple parties, 
> even if the database is physically unique for technical reasons. 
> The discussion concerning 'lock-in' reinforces the viewpoint that 
> a single entity would control a database and therefore a gTLD. We
> do not believe this is required by database technology. As 
> this issue is one of the most contentious, clarification of the 
> text is required. 
>
> Assuming we have correctly interpreted the word 'registry', 
> the IAB wishes to point out that there is no technical reason 
> for the proposed limit of one gTLD per such registry. 
>
> On the other hand, a very large increase in the total number of gTLDs
> (say to thousands) would lead us into technically unknown territory.
>
> We note that the green paper attempts to define specifics and 
> details concerning the number of gTLDs, the number of registries, 
> and the number of gTLDs per registry.  In keeping with the 
> principles that have allowed the Internet to flourish, that is, 
> bottom-up consensus-building and self-determination, we 
> encourage the US government to avoid specific detail and, instead,
> allow self governance the opportunity to determine the details.
> We also note that considerable progress has been made over the


> last 12 months in developing gTLD criteria and dispute resolution
> procedures, and this progress is not adequately recognized in
> the green paper. 
>
> 3. The IAB is a committee of the IETF, the open international
> voluntary standards organization for basic Internet protocols.
> We are therefore concerned that the proposed responsibility
> of the new corporation to
>  
> > > coordinate the development of other
> > > technical protocol parameters as needed to maintain universal
> > > connectivity on the Internet.
>
> might be misread in such a way as to undermine the autonomy of the 
> IETF. We propose that the word "development" should be replaced by 
> the word "assignment". This would be consistent with the existing 
> relationship between the IANA and the IETF, which has proved 
> beneficial to all parties.
>
> 4. We support the authority of the current IANA, including that over
> the DNS root, throughout the transition period and we will be very
> happy to assist in any measures to reinforce that authority.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>   Brian E Carpenter (IAB Chair)         brian () hursley ibm com
>   IBM United Kingdom Laboratories       http://www.hursley.ibm.com/~bc/
>   MP 185                                phone: +44 1962 816833
>   Hursley Park                          fax:   +44 1962 818101
>   Winchester
>   Hampshire SO21 2JN, UK




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