🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, Dave Crocker wrote:

> At 05:54 PM 4/16/98 -0400, Robert Raisch wrote:
> >What I find most interesting is that no argument I have yet seen presented
> >by the technocrats provides any clear technical reason why 'dot' cannot be
> >opened for free market competition other than '...because it would be bad.'
> 
> There have rather more substantive responses than that, repeatedly and at
> length.  It's odd that you missed them.
> 
> >Each 'solution' so far presented appears to represent an ideological
> >viewpoint, not a technical one.
> 
> Sorry, no.  The substantive arguments pertains to operational impact and
> stability of the net, therefore proposing an incremental approach.  The
> important source of contention is not what the upper limit is, but how
> quickly new names should be added.  Some believe any number of new names
> should just be created all at once.  Others believe that the potential for
> negative scaling effects is real and serious, thereby necessitating
> incremental additions, in order to monitor and limit those effects, and to
> permit operational adjustments as necessary. 

These claims for an "incremental approach" and warnings about
"potential negative scaling effects" are euphamisms for keeping the
status quo, i.e. IANA/NSI/CORE and their intentions to monopolize the
namespace amongst themselves, including privatized individual or
groups of gTLD's.

The point is best made in Paul Vixie's comments on the record of
pgMedia's meeting with Becky Burr on March 13, 1998.  For the sake of
clarity, I present that excerpt below.

Read on--

--IWakes

>Ex parte Excerpt No. 5:
>[...]
> 
>III. NTIA HAS INAPPROPRIATELY LIMITED THE SCOPE OF DNS COMPETITION
>OUT OF FALSE, UNSUBSTANTIATED CONCERNS REGARDING THE TECHNICAL
>STABILITY OF THE INTERNET
>
>A.There are no technical constraints on the number of gTLDs that can
>operate simultaneously on the Internet, and absolutely no basis for
>any concern that expansion of the TLD namespace will contribute even
>to transitional instability of the Internet

Vixie Comment No. 5:

>Vixie: This is unfortunately true.  The caching model would just move
>up one layer. A million names in .COM is not fundamentally different,
>regarding caching, from a million names in ".". The IAHC people
spread
>a bunch of F, U, and D about this, to the detriment of their
>credibility (with me anyway). There are however valid nontechnical
>reasons why polluting "." is a bad idea.

pgMedia's Response No. 5:

pgMedia is happy that Mr. Vixie at least recognizes the technical
soundness of pgMedia's model, and that there is in fact no practical
or  technical constraint on adding new gTLDs to the root.  While Mr.
Vixie may not like the idea of adding new TLDs (pgMedia does not wish
to respond to words like "polluting;" we expect that serious people
will recognize such invective for what it is), he is not a legislative
authority.  Most importantly, this concession -- that in fact a
million names can be added, without problem, to the "." root server --
completely undermines any claim by Mr. Vixie's, or anyone else, that
pgMedia's proposal for adding new gTLDs is technically flawed.

Background Links:

NTIA Green Paper --
<http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/022098fedreg.htm> 

pgMedia Comments --
<http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/pgMedia.htm>

NAME.SPACE
<http://TIME-TO.MOVE-OVER.COM/!!!>