Non-English Domain Names Likely Delayed

Mon Jul 18 23:03:57 UTC 2005

At 11:55 PM +0200 2005-07-18, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:

>  Maybe one day I'll tell you about the early days of SIDN.

	I've had some pretty extensive conversations with Jaap.  I came 
pretty close to working for him, even though I'm in Brussels and the 
job is in Amsterdam.  I've had pretty extensive conversations with a 
number of people from what is now Stichting NLnet, and heard some 
interesting stories.

	However, I don't see that this has any bearing whatsoever on the 
way that TLD registries operate today.  Certainly no more than old 
stories about how things used to be with Jon Postel as the Benevolent 
Dictator.

>                                                             No government
>  in sight. I know this has changed a bit, but it's mostly rubber stamping
>  what was happening already.

	Key word, "was".

>                               I'm fairly sure it's the same way for most
>  ccTLDs.

	Maybe it was.  It's not that way anymore.

>  I don't believe the major TLDs with million+ names registered are
>  short sighted enough to think it's a good idea to encourage confusion.

	They know who really pays the bills, and those customers will 
make sure that they know that they shouldn't work too hard to 
eliminate confusion.  There may be some who take a more pro-active 
view, but I fear that they will be in the minority.

>  Apparently there's only one way that really works, so everyone will be
>  doing the same thing, save for some details maybe.

	I'll believe that when I see it.

>  Remember the Bell standards? ANSI, DIN? You have to with what works,
>  especially in security where the cost of doing it wrong or delaying
>  the solution can be very high.

	There's also a high cost in setting things in concrete before the 
foundation is ready.

>  Ok then, what else is the dominant profession amongst (wannabe)
>  internet governance types?

	I think most of the people in the IETF are techno-geeks, although 
some are probably systems administrators, some are systems 
programmers, some are network administrators, etc....  As to which of 
those is dominant, I have no idea.

	If you're talking about ICANN, well they're part of the problem 
-- you don't want them to be the watchers, either.

	In the ITU, I imagine that there are a few lawyers involved, but 
most of the people in question are probably telephone wire-heads.

	Got any others?

>  Hopefully they make this stuff user configurable. This stuff is a lot
>  like SSL certificates that come with browsers.

	Even if it is configurable in one browser doesn't mean that it 
will be in any other.  And just because it's configurable in a 
browser doesn't mean that the zillions of other Internet-enabled 
applications will do the same.

	Regardless, the Rule of Defaults says that something like 99.999% 
of them will take whatever is shipped.

>  It's not so much that many people will actually do this, but the fact
>  that users can vote with their feet keeps the people in control down the
>  chain honest. (Well, more honest than they would be otherwise, at least.)

	But where do they run?  If everyone has their own implementation, 
presumably many of them will have minor or major incompatibilities. 
If all the buildings around you are falling down for one reason or 
another, how do you choose which one to live in?

>  You can't have an effictive dictatorship when people are free to move to
>  the next country.

	Hmm.  Seems to me I've heard others say that in the past, in 
defense of some rather unsavoury actions that they've undertaken.

	If you want to cast yourself as a good guy and everyone else as a 
bad guy, you might want to choose different phraseology.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.