IP: Re: ISOC Forces Announce: Open IFWP IANA Process Doomed to

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 11:49:55 -0400
To: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
From: Charles Brownstein <cbrownst@cnri.reston.va.us>
Subject: Re: ISOC Forces Announce: Open IFWP IANA Process Doomed to  
Fail


The latest IANA draft strikes me as more reasonably close to the broad
directions of the IFWP meeting discussions in which I participated in
Reston, albeit without n unworkable mechanisms for granting "governance
rights", veto powers, or operational status to anyone off the street who
claims them, or monopoly rights for claimed suffixes to every would-by
profiteer with a lawyer and access to a list.


The draft offers a solid starting place: overdetermined alternatives or no
alternatives are not going to suffice to initiate private sector
responsibility. Face it - a starting place is the mechanism for transition.
I can think of few better ways to sustain the status quo than to sow
dissension at this point. To me the real issue is the extent to which the
domain name commercialization interests can organize themselves into an
open responsible industry group- worthy of being a council of equivalent
legitimacy to the others proposed. If it is not possible to move forward,
retaining the US government as fiduciary -- given the outstanding record it
has in that role, looks better and better all the time.






Charles N. Brownstein
Executive Director, XIWT
Suite 100, 1895 Preston White Dr, Reston, VA 20191


email:  cbrownst@cnri.reston.va.us       web:  <http://www.xiwt.org>
tel:  703.620.8990