NEWDOM: Re: Ad Hoc, eDNS, AlterNIC and the bunch

Fri Apr 11 01:12:55 UTC 1997

On Thu, 10 Apr 1997, Karl Denninger wrote:

> > > > The rest of the
> > > > organizations that have announced an intent to sign at a formal
> > 
> > > The IAHC has said they *SIGNED* the documents.
> > > 
> > > Intent and action are two different things Perry.
> > 
> > Grow up Karl! Hank Nussbacher said as follows:
> > 
> >    Of the over 25 signatories (so far), MCI is just one.  UUnet, Digital,
> >    France Telecom, EFF, are others that come to mind. 
> > 
> > Hank is only one member of the IAHC and does not issue official
> > statements. 
> 
> But he lied.  The EFF has said they *HAVE NOT* signed.  

There you go again. One guy from the EFF says something and you claim that
this is equivalent to an official statement of the EFF. 

> In fact, according
> to the other people involved, *NONE* of those so-called signatories are in
> fact signatories at this point in time.

So what. That's not a good enough reason to call him a liar. I'm sure
there are dozens of statements that you have made on various mailing lists
that are provably incorrect. Does that make you a liar? Sheesh...

> > He's also human and can make mistakes. Maybe since English is not the only
> > language he uses in his daily work, he missed some of the subtlety
> > inherent in the word "signatory".
> 
> There is no subtlety in the word "signatory".

Maybe not for you. But for someone who spends everyday working in another
language like Hank does, I generally cut them some slack on language
subtleties irregardless of their native language. I am a native speaker
of English and didn't learn another language until I was ten but I have
still caught myself making mistakes in English that I can track down to
quirks of the other languages that I speak. 

> > rubric he darn well pleases to use. In particular, it is well known that
> > Jon Postel is the official voice of IANA and is the one who makes official
> > statements for IANA. This MoU looks a lot like an official statement to
> > me.
> 
> The IANA *DOES NOT EXIST* as an organization.

So what. If I want to go and open a Bank account in the name of the
International Institute for Internet Investors then I don't need anything
other than my own signature on a piece of paper. Since the name does not
have Corp., Inc., Ltd., Society, or Association in it, it is clear that it
has no legal existence but I can still open a bank account, write checks, 
buy letterhead, register a domain, etc. If I manage to create a reputation
for the activities of the IIII (IV for short :-) then people will accept
my signature beside the name of the IIII for based on that reputation.

That's what Jon's signature means on the MoU when it is beside the name of
IANA. Nothing more, nothing less. People are free to disagree and refrain
from signing the memorandum. And they are free to publicly state their
agreement by adding their signature to the document. It's not a contract
or a treaty, but a public statement by those who sign it. 

It does not prevent anyone who does NOT sign it from doing whatever they
wish, up to and including the creation of an alternative root domain for
the DNS. Your creation of the eDNS is evidence enough that this is so.
While there are many of us that will lobby hard to get people to support
IAHC and to NOT support eDNS, I haven't heard anyone call for you to be
shut down or to stop eDNS from operating or from moving forward with their
plans. 

It's a free world. You do your thing, the IAHC will do theirs, and the
users of the Internet, singly and en masse, will choose the winner or
winners. Note that this is *NOT* a zero-sum game even if the DNS
technology seems to imply zero-sum on the surface.

Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-250-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com