more on ** Are "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Karl Auerbach <karl () cavebear com>
Date: November 12, 2005 4:53:53 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "Robert C. Atkinson" <rca53 () columbia edu>
Subject: Re: [IP] Are "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?


> From: "Robert C. Atkinson" <rca53 () columbia edu>

> It would be interesting (and perhaps useful to WSIS delegates  
> heading  to Tunis) to get IPers' reaction to today's Wall Street  
> Journal  editorial board recommendation ("Breaking Up Is Hard to  
> Do") that the  least worst solution to the dispute about the future  
> "control of the  Internet" is to allow national root servers  
> ("split root").  Excerpts  from the article:

The real issue is not whether there can be multiple competing systems  
of roots but whether those systems consistent with one another.

I believe that we have reached a point where we largely agree that  
the net would be fine with multiple systems of roots if all were  
operated using the exact same root zone file (modulo the small  
changes needed to designate the name servers that comprise each root.)

I'd also add that I personally have not analyzed the impact of DNSSEC  
on this and think it would be useful if a DNSSEC expert were to weigh- 
in on  the question of how multiple, but otherwise identical, systems  
of roots would far in a world in which DNSSEC is used.

The question that I perceive is the real question is whether those  
different systems of roots can vary from one another in this way:  
Each system of roots would (presumably) carry the same core set of  
top level domains (probably the NTIA/ICANN/Verisign set of about 250  
TLDs that most folks are using today).  However, some of these roots  
may carry boutique top level domains - perhaps like my .ewe - that  
are aspiring to gain enough buy-in/market-share to be accepted into  
the TLD inventory of enough of the root systems that they become, in  
effect, members of the core suite of TLDs.  In other words -  
selection of TLDs by the normal mechanisms that determine which  
products succeed in a competitive marketplace and which do not.

I believe that this kind of core-set of TLDs on all root systems and  
a variable suite of boutique TLDs is a safe and workable mechanism.   
Other people hold a contrary point of view.

Discussion on this would be useful, but we should all remember that  
there is really no means through which such a situation can be  
prevented except imposing, with the force of law, one catholic root.

                --karl--

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