Should NSF declare victory and leave?

Tue Oct 29 09:48:22 UTC 1996

  > Paul A Vixie <paul at vix.com> writes:
  > I think this would be a bad thing.  NS needs a watchdog.

I fully agree with the latter and not necessarily with the former. 

At least for the Internet *number* registration part there are two
working examples where both the watching and funding is done by the
region's ISPs in a very open and cooperative manner: APNIC and the RIPE
NCC.  This works well because the ISPs realise that they have to
organise this together, whether they like cooperating or not. 

I do not see any reason why such a model could not work for the InterNIC
or at least the number registration part of it.  To me it just seems
like a question of the providers realising that they have to organise
some things together and getting their act together.  I am quite sure
that NSF would happily let go and I expect that NSI would be willing to
talk as there are benefits in such a scheme for them too. 

But then I am a naive European and not so closely involved with N.A. 
politics.  If however someone wants to make this work I will happily
help them by explaining our experiences. 

Daniel