Goals and Milestones
Nov 1996
Submit a Shared Top Level Domain IETF Draft that outlines
one or more technical and policy solutions, along with
a fairly detailed discussion of the tradeoffs that led to
it (them).
Nov 1996
Establishment of the .SHARED TLD for purposes of testing
STLD proposals.
Apr 1997
STLD RFC, possible second RFC
- --
Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint: B6 04 CC 30 9E DE CD FE 6A 04 90 BB 26 77 4A 5E
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 11:59:40 -0700
From: Dan Busarow
Subject: Re: new draft WG charter
On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Kent Crispin wrote:
> I'm going to change that to Nov. You owe me a nickel if it takes longer.
Do I get one if we make it ? I can work pretty damn hard for 5 cents. :)
Dan
- --
Dan Busarow 714 443 4172
DPC Systems dan@dpcsys.com
Dana Point, California 83 09 EF 59 E0 11 89 B4 8D 09 DB FD E1 DD 0C 82
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 12:04:55 -0700
From: Simon Higgs
Subject: Re: The World Verses NSI/NSA/USA
At 12:36 PM -0400 8/15/96, Bob Allisat wrote:
> 99.999% of human beings do
> not own computers or know
> anything about this medium.
> So none of us rep[resent
> the majority. I feel that
> my views (as exppressed in
> part by my version of the RFC)
> take the interests of the most
> people to heart while Higgs and
> many more on this mailing list
> chant their mantras basically
> saying "USA First".
>
Huh? That was a very dumb statement Bob. That just makes you sound like a
"Newfie". The *LAST* thing I'll post in that draft is something that
promotes the USA first. If you'd had understood any of the draft, you'd
have realized that it takes authority away from the US by removing the need
for NSF funding (and Congress' only real claim) and replaces it with
international commercial funding - letting the marketplace decide how it
should grow. If that happens to be American then so be it. If that happens
to be Canadian then so be it. If that happens to be Martian then so be it.
Etc...
_____S_i_m_o_n___H_i_g_g_s_________________H_i_g_g_s___A_m_e_r_i_c_a_____
... "I'm fine - it's the others" ......... President/CEO ................
_____e-mail: simon@higgs.com _____________ http://www.higgs.com/ ________
... http://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-higgs-tld-cat-02.txt ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 13:12:01 -0700
From: Kent Crispin
Subject: Re: new draft WG charter
Dan Busarow allegedly said:
>
> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Kent Crispin wrote:
> > I'm going to change that to Nov. You owe me a nickel if it takes longer.
>
> Do I get one if we make it ? I can work pretty damn hard for 5 cents. :)
>
> Dan
> --
> Dan Busarow 714 443 4172
> DPC Systems dan@dpcsys.com
> Dana Point, California 83 09 EF 59 E0 11 89 B4 8D 09 DB FD E1 DD 0C 82
Dan, if we have a consensus draft to the IETF by Nov 1, I will pay a
nickel to you and everyone else that works on it. If we have a draft
*and* a working prototype, I will happily pay a dime. I'll even pay
if we are late, but it's my fault.
- --
Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint: B6 04 CC 30 9E DE CD FE 6A 04 90 BB 26 77 4A 5E
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 13:35:48 -0700
From: Michael Dillon
Subject: Re: Yet another draft WG charter
On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Kent Crispin wrote:
> It should be noted that the issue of shared TLDs is quite distinct
> from the issue of new TLDs. It is possible, for example, that some of
> the current TLDs could convert to shared TLDs, and no new TLDs be
> created.
OK.
> However, it is also possible that shared TLDs be implemented
> through the creation of new TLDs.
This is redundant prose and is addressed by the first two sentences above.
> Creation of too many TLDs would
> have potentially enormous negative impact on DNS performance, and thus
> on the Internet itself. Any RFC's from this WG must address this
> issue.
I don't think this belongs in the shared-tld WG because we are talking
specifically about sharing and not about creation of new TLD's. I don't
even think that RFC's need to address the issue.
> Since the proposals of this WG would directly impact the workings of
> the IANA, it is recognized that the IANA must actively participate.
"Must" sounds rather strong here. If IANA agrees to participate then I
don't really see the point of putting it in the charter. And if they
decline, then there is clearly no point of having it in the charter.
A charter is guidance for the WG participants, not laws that mandate
actions of other groups.
> Three primary products are expected from this WG: First; a STLD IETF
> draft;
STLD is meaningless jargon. Of course if the term were defined
above... Even IETF draft is somewhat of a vague term.
> second, a test implementation of the proposals in the draft;
> and third, a revised STLD IETF draft incorporating the lessons from
> the experiment, which should become an RFC.
In fact, I'd leave this out of the charter entirely and rely on the goals
& milestones to establish the action timeline.
> o impact of shared TLD proposals on the network performance
Isn't an impact study required for ANY new protocol? Do we need to
explicitly say this? Is there no "protocol design" RFC that we can point
at and just say, "we will folow the procedures outlined in RFC ???? for
designing the new protocols".
> o the relationship between STLD registries and the IANA,
> including suggested procedures for licensing a registry,
> and the associated policies
Is licencing the right word here? This also seems to imply that sharing
requires approval from the top, i.e. IANA, whereas I feel that it should
be an independent decision of the registry concerned. Unless of course,
IANA is willing to mandate that all registries will be shared in two
years.
Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting
Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 16:41:01 -0700
From: Kent Crispin
Subject: Re: Yet another draft WG charter
Michael Dillon allegedly said:
>
> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Kent Crispin wrote:
>
> > It should be noted that the issue of shared TLDs is quite distinct
> > from the issue of new TLDs. It is possible, for example, that some of
> > the current TLDs could convert to shared TLDs, and no new TLDs be
> > created.
>
> OK.
>
> > However, it is also possible that shared TLDs be implemented
> > through the creation of new TLDs.
>
> This is redundant prose and is addressed by the first two sentences above.
>
> > Creation of too many TLDs would
> > have potentially enormous negative impact on DNS performance, and thus
> > on the Internet itself. Any RFC's from this WG must address this
> > issue.
>
> I don't think this belongs in the shared-tld WG because we are talking
> specifically about sharing and not about creation of new TLD's. I don't
> even think that RFC's need to address the issue.
This is the second of Scott Bradner's issues. He's busy right at the
moment, and didn't have time to commment specifically. I will wait
until I hear from him. Once again, I suspect he will agree with you.
> > Since the proposals of this WG would directly impact the workings of
> > the IANA, it is recognized that the IANA must actively participate.
>
> "Must" sounds rather strong here. If IANA agrees to participate then I
> don't really see the point of putting it in the charter. And if they
> decline, then there is clearly no point of having it in the charter.
> A charter is guidance for the WG participants, not laws that mandate
> actions of other groups.
The WG charter won't be final until I hear from either Bill or Jon on
this issue, in any case. In fact, I have reviews pending from
several people with the current draft, and I probably shouldn't
circulate any further drafts until I hear back from them.
So far, it seems like at least conceptually the WG is looked upon
favorably. There may be some further details to work out in the
charter, but I think there is enough there to have some general
discussion. You touch on some interesting points below that I would
like to expand on...
> > Three primary products are expected from this WG: First; a STLD IETF
> > draft;
>
> STLD is meaningless jargon. Of course if the term were defined
> above... Even IETF draft is somewhat of a vague term.
>
> > second, a test implementation of the proposals in the draft;
> > and third, a revised STLD IETF draft incorporating the lessons from
> > the experiment, which should become an RFC.
>
> In fact, I'd leave this out of the charter entirely and rely on the goals
> & milestones to establish the action timeline.
>
> > o impact of shared TLD proposals on the network performance
>
> Isn't an impact study required for ANY new protocol? Do we need to
> explicitly say this? Is there no "protocol design" RFC that we can point
> at and just say, "we will folow the procedures outlined in RFC ???? for
> designing the new protocols".
It's not clear that we will actually define, or need to define, a
strict protocol. It could very well be the case that all that is
necessary to implement shared registries is a contractually enforced
set of administrative policies, procedures, and regulations. (You
could call this an administrative protocol, I suppose.)
For example, all that might be required is a statement to the effect
that "registries will use some secure and authenticated locking
mechanism to avoid collisions", and in our prototype we use a central
database on a linux machine, with pgp and perl scripts doing the
authentication.
For various reasons, though, we might decide that such an approach
wasn't sufficient. If so, then the RFC might indeed include a
protocol. This level of detail is unknowable until after we have
gone through some discussion on the subject. Thus, I have tried to
avoid the term "protocol" in the charter, prefering to use more
abstract terms like "model" or "proposals".
> > o the relationship between STLD registries and the IANA,
> > including suggested procedures for licensing a registry,
> > and the associated policies
>
> Is licencing the right word here? This also seems to imply that sharing
> requires approval from the top, i.e. IANA, whereas I feel that it should
> be an independent decision of the registry concerned. Unless of course,
> IANA is willing to mandate that all registries will be shared in two
> years.
I am not sure that "license" is the precisely correct term, but there
needs to be some contractual relationship between the registry and
the IANA in which the registry agrees to follow the shared TLD
standards (whatever they may be), and furthermore, (IMO) this
"license" should be worded in such a fashion that it is *also* a
contract between the registry and any other registries that serve
that particular TLD. That way conflicts between the registries can
be settled in the courts via actions between the registries, and only
extreme cases would the IANA be involved in any dispute resolution.
IMO: If it is an "independent decision of the registry concerned"
whether it wants to share, then that registry "owns" the TLD, which is
exactly what we are trying to avoid by creating shared TLDs in the
first place. It is therefore clearly necessary for the IANA to
mandate that a particular TLD be treated as a shared TLD, if shared
TLDs are to have any realistic meaning. To use Simon's terminology,
"shared" is an attribute that is determined when the TLD is created,
and "registries serve the TLD". The role of the IANA is to license
as many registries for that shared TLD as it sees fit -- there may
only be one at any particular time, but it can license more, and the
terms of the license for the one *require* it to cooperate with any
other registry licensed for that particular TLD.
The model you describe would be that we define some procedures etc
for how registries for shared TLDs should interact, and nothing more.
We could do that, but clearly much more is required to actually have
functioning shared TLDs. A complete proposal requires that issues
such as conflict resolution, "licensing", legal remedies etc all be
addressed, at least to the level that the Postel draft addresses
them. Obviously the legal details are beyond the expertise of this
group. But, just as in the Postel draft, they must be addressed.
- --
Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint: B6 04 CC 30 9E DE CD FE 6A 04 90 BB 26 77 4A 5E
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 19:24:18 -0700
From: "David R. Conrad"
Subject: Re: revised draft WG charter
>Chair(s)
>
> o TBD
> (Someone from IANA?)
I'd like to suggest Kent Crispin for obvious reasons...
Regards,
- -drc
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 20:33:37 -0700
From: kslim@merlion.singnet.com.sg (KOON SANG LIM)
Subject: FW: Lost People
Dear Bob
I think you are being overly sensitive here Bob! I have subscribed to both
newdom@ar.com and shared-tld@higgs.net since the beginning of both lists.You
should know well now that I am only a simple user and not an expert nor an
active participant on both lists, yet I know how to subscribe! I am sure
that no one is trying to hide any thing from you or try to ban you if this is
what you suspect.
Best regards
KS Lim
- ---------------Original Message---------------
A lot of people may have
been unaware of the change
from to
or the other
mailing list (of undetermined
address or content).
Please publish how to subscribe
(and unsubscribe!) to the
various mailing lists. I myself
have been trying to subscribe
to the Higgs shared TLD list
for some days now.
What's the matter, trying to
hide something folks?? More
below...
TeleVirtually Yours,
Bob Allisat tor@wtv.net
Director,
World Televirtual Network http://www.wtv.net
An subscriber
(identity changed to preserve the
confidentiality of E-Mail) wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> So is this where it went?
>
> I have been trying to subscribe to this mailing list for a couple of
> weeks now, it has proved extraordinarily difficult. The guys at iiia.org
> (portia.com) have put up nothing on their web page to say that the list
> is defunct, or indeed where it has gone, they don't answer email
> about it either.
>
> So, I found two possibilities in the archive, one of which is your
> message.
>
> If this is where the discussion resides, I would like to subscribe,
> xoxoxoxo@xxx.xxx to the list please.
>
> If not, then I would welcome any pointers to the correct place.
>
> Regards
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 21:21:47 -0700
From: kslim@merlion.singnet.com.sg (KOON SANG LIM)
Subject: FW: new draft WG charter
Dear Kent
This dratf looks good to me. I believe the milestones are achievable.
I notice that you did not presume the needs of more new TLDs and define them
here. My personal opinion is that whether there is need for new TLDs and if
yes how many and what should they be should be subject to further
deliberation by the WG instead of being built into the charter now. I
have nothing against new TLDs if they are needed but I believe this will give
the WG more flexibility later.
My two cents...
Best regards
KS Lim
- ---------------Original Message---------------
I am enclosing a new copy of the draft WG charter. I have
incorporated the SINGLE suggestion I got for changes (though in a
different place than suggested), and made serveral additions.
Please review. In light of our discussions so far, I think it is
actually fairly important that someone from IANA chair the WG, and I
have added language in support of that.
Here it is:
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
DRAFT
Shared Top Level Domains Working Group (STLDWG) Charter
Chair(s)
o TBD
(Someone from IANA?)
Internet Area Director(s)
o Frank Kastenholz
o Jeffrey Burgan
Mailing List Information
o General Discussion: shared-tld@higgs.net
o To Subscribe: shared-tld-request@higgs.net
o Archive:
http://www.higgs.net/mail/lists/shared-tld/shared-tld-digest.html
Description of Working Group
The Shared Top Level Domains Working Group is concerned with the
technical and logistic requirements of creating shared domain name
registration databases, and the administration of delegated top level
domains by multiple domain name registries. The motivation for this
concern is to minimize centralized management of all components of
the name space.
Since the proposals of this WG would directly impact the workings of
the IANA, it is recognized that the IANA must actively participate.
The primary products of this WG are three: First the STLD Draft, and
second, a test implemtation of the ideas using the .SHARED TLD as a
test, and three, a revised STLD draft incorporating the lessons from
the experiment, which should become an RFC
In more detail, the areas of concern include
o fostering an appropriate blend of competition and
cooperation between cohort registries
o the relationship between STLD registries and the DNS
o the relationship between STLD registries and the IANA,
including suggested procedures for licensing a registry,
and the associated policies
o technical issues regarding management of the various
databases involved in running and coordinating registries.
This includes issues like distribution of updates, locking
of a shared coordination database, and so on
o the adminstrative procedures involved in running
a registry serving a Shared TLD
o authentication and authorization issues
o minimizing possible legal complexities
o as much as possible, making the relationships between
cohort registries self-regulating -- that is, minimizing
IANA's role in regulation or dispute resolution.
Goals and Milestones
Jan 1997
Submit a Shared Top Level Domain IETF Draft that outlines
one or more technical and policy solutions, along with
a fairly detailed discussion of the tradeoffs that led to
if (them).
Jan 1997
Establishment of the .SHARED TLD for purposes of testing
STLD proposals.
Apr 1997
STLD RFC
- --
Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint: B6 04 CC 30 9E DE CD FE 6A 04 90 BB 26 77 4A 5E
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Aug 1996 21:48:59 -0700
From: Kent Crispin
Subject: Re: revised draft WG charter
David R. Conrad allegedly said:
>
> >Chair(s)
> >
> > o TBD
> > (Someone from IANA?)
>
> I'd like to suggest Kent Crispin for obvious reasons...
>
> Regards,
> -drc
*Blush* I really appreciate that, it would be great exposure for me, I
would love to do it, and, except for the fact that I will be gone for
a three week vacation pretty soon now (floating down the Colorado
River in the Grand Canyon -- I will *really* be out of touch), I would
be willing, and probably able, to do the work.
There is, however, another consideration: successful deployment of a
shared TLD scheme would be a very big deal, and the effort would be
greatly aided by having someone at the helm with a solid reputation
and a long history in the Net community, and lots of experience in the
area. Paul Mokapetris, Jon Postel, Paul Vixie, Bill Manning, and some
others have been suggested. I think we should first check with these
people.
Of course, come to think of it, I would be happy to be co-chair.
But, given that in about two weeks I will be on my way to Arizona,
there needs to be someone else involved, anyway.
- --
Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint: B6 04 CC 30 9E DE CD FE 6A 04 90 BB 26 77 4A 5E
