At 04:28 15/06/2011, Nicolas Adam wrote:
>Now i am not going to dispute that. Nor will, i think, anyone who 
>would favor gTLD enlargement (but i might be astray on this last 
>assertion and it is possible that some people like ICANN for it's 
>centralizing potentialities).  But you were nevertheless implying 
>"harm". And while i do see an alternative, i do not see harm 
>proceeding from the current gTLD-enlarging path.  I do not see 
>anything that wouldn't be fundamentally changed anyhow by the 
>alternative solution you introduce me to, and i certainly does not 
>see harm being done, irreparable or otherwise, by a gTLD enlargement.

Nicolas,
There is no dispute. There are facts. These facts are simple enough:


1. The Internet has grown into a very, very large network, beyond 
what its IETF decentralized technology (RFC 3935) was expected to 
support. However, it will continue to grow within the distributed 
world digital ecosystem. This growth, among others, calls for a 
dramatic gTLD enlargement that must converge with other network and 
service namespaces.

The only way the community has been able to control this growth, so 
far, is through a political, legal, and financial driven context that 
is coordinated by ICANN.

----

2. We discovered 18 months ago - this is what permitted the IDNA2008 
consensus - that the built-in power of the Internet technology is 
quasi unlimited if the existing RFCs and code are read and used 
(without a single coma/bit change) in a new "multiplication by 
subsidiarity division" intricate network context.

Highly professional and secure tools for this context are already 
available to every Internet user for free (*). They can be made easy 
to install in minutes. They are easy to extend for a better and 
cheaper "Internet PLUS", but there is still no activated forum to 
document the needed extended network layers: IESG and IAB have 
identified them as external to the IETF area of responsibility.

-----

3. The gTLD enlargement is part of the DNS and of the whole internet 
growth. As such, it will speed up the transition from context (1) to 
context (2) above.

  ICANN has not yet considered or tested the implications of a blunt 
introduction of this transition or the consequences of denying funded 
gTLD projects. Under these circumstances a few times a $200,000 
budget makes more than what is needed to compete with ICANN in a 
technically legitimate way and create havoc in the DNS commercial use.

No community bottom-up process has considered it, discussed it, or 
prepared plans. There is no defense discussed as yet against a blunt 
introduction of the single authoritative virtual root even if sites 
to document it are prepared. ICANN has not alluded to this 
transition, not to its acceleration, neither in its existing and 
planned TLD agreements nor in its Accountability Frameworks (ccTLD 
will be the first ones to suffer). The GAC has not raised the issue 
publicly as yet.

----

ICANN is informed, as it was adequately and actively represented at 
the IETF/WG/IDNAbis, that it was proposed for them to take the 
leadership in this area by their former Chair, and some GAC Members 
discussed the issue informally.

Therefore,

- either ICANN plans to use the impending naming doom to its own 
advantage. This would be committing suicide, except if this is to 
prepare a crash, an undiscussed "Netkeeper Act" by governments and a 
GAC takeover to "protect" TMs, ccTLDs, and gTLDs against "pollution".

- or ICANN behaves responsibly and wants, before unleashing the gTLDs 
enlargement, a bottom-up GNSO concern towards a general debate and a 
consensual solution that will ensure full community support.

In both cases, that are probably intertwienned together with Google's 
own interests and capacity to take over a government/industry 
controlled virtual root, we have to carefully review the situation 
before committing ourselves. Being clever does not call for long 
delays. Just some smart, reasonable and responsible quick thinking. 
Before falling into a possible fatal trap or deciding a war at ICANN.

jfc


----

(*) I use my own Bind copy or another nameserver on my Windows PC, 
with my own root file, and a db file that I maintain for my own root 
names (TLDs). Faster, more secure, reliable, protected, and immortal 
than any root server system when a mobile is more powerfull than the 
largest mainframes of 1983. Cost of my TLD: $ 0 to be used by my TLD 
users, by user: $ 0 and by registrant: $ 0.