I was wryly amused, if also a little disappointed, at the spin that
someone in iiNet has chosen to put on the conclusion of their abortive
legal wrangle with Melbourne IT, Telstra and KRE, in Kim Davies' posting
to this mailing list on Monday (19 May), under the heading "DNS: iiNet
ends legal action".

Kim Davies wrote:
> ...
> As a sign of good faith, iiNet has decided not to pursue costs against
> Melbourne IT for the court action.
>
In fact, the Federal Court gave Melbourne IT the opportunity to prepare
a case for costs against iiNet, and not vice versa. At this stage iiNet
had withdrawn its action, the Court had awarded Telstra's costs and
KRE's costs (if any) against iiNet, and Melbourne IT's chances of
winning costs were, in our view, quite significant. 

However at the DNS Forum in Sydney on Friday 16 May, a few minutes
before the start of the meeting, I took Michael Malone to one side and
told him that, in a spirit of concilation, Melbourne IT had decided not
to pursue costs against iiNet. Michael thanked me and shook my hand
warmly and spontaneously.

The new spirit of conciliation bore surprising fruit that same day, when
MM unexpectedly nominated me for the position of interim Secretary of
ADNA. I was as staggered and pleased as when at the previous DNS Forum
Skeeve Stevens gave an unsolicited testimonial to Melbourne IT's
excellent perfomance in processing com.au applications. 
 
I am therefore, as I said, a little disappointed that sorme-one in iiNet
decided on Monday to try and extract sole credit for our rapprochement,
by implying untruthfully that they were the initiator of the
settlement.  

On the other hand I do entirely agree with Michael Malone where Kim
Davies has quoted him in their press release as saying: 
>   "Both Melbourne IT and iiNet support the common goal of achieving fair
>   competition in domain name registrations. We're pleased to put this
>   court action behind us, and co-operate on the establishment of the
>   Australian Domain Name Authority (ADNA)"
 
Let's leave it at that.  

PG