I can see a number of points where I have common ground with
Robert: Yes "January 17th is much too soon to decide upon any of this",
and "it also needs to be determined that the DNS Forum is indeed the
appropriate (widely representative) body to be making these kinds of
decisions" are both views that I share.

But there are areas where there is ample room for debate - and whether
you choose a style of voluminous commentary on the email stream or  a
"style [which] is appropriate when it comes from the defence side in a criminal
courtroom" ( :-) ), it makes not much difference to the core or the
debate which is about the role of the DNS and the evident conflicts
of expectation being cast within this role.

I have indicated in previous posts, that, like it or not, the DNS is currently
burdened with a greater role than translating alpha strings into
IP addresses and back - its being cast into the role of a directory, and in
particular the name spaces of .com and  .com.<two-letter-country-code>
are wearing the brunt of that functional overload.

Robert Elz appears (without actually saying so explicitly) to be indicating
a preference to resist this pressure, and he advocates an administrative
role of "to preserve, conserve, and rationally manage the domain name
space".

I personally believe that this is a role which cannot be sustained against
the very heavy demands being placed on the DNS, and there is a very real
pressure to deploy the technology to fulfil the expectations of the Internet
community. My views on this deployment strategy are to embark
on a direction which operates on a policy framework which I've outlined
in previous posts. 

Equally there are other posted views which are intended to either meet this demand
for a flexible name space which can map into a directory structure by admitting
names for organisations, goods, services and products, or posted views
which evidently are intended to attempt to moderate this directory pressure
to some extent or other.

I do not see a consensus as to the preferred principles of approach in all
this as yet, but at least I do see an attempt in this mail stream to come to terms
with what the problem is and then devise appropriate solution space should
look like.

thanks,

   Geoff

-- 
Geoff.Huston&#167;telstra.net

Network Technical Manager    Locked Bag 5744,
Telstra Internet             Canberra  ACT  2601
                             AUSTRALIA

ph  +61 6 208 1908
fax +61 6 248 6165


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