Re: [ga] NTIA "Request for Information" on the IANA Functions

[JFC Morfin <jefsey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Kim,
thank you for your honnesty. This helps the debate. Please correct me 
if I am wrong.

1. The ICANN IANA team has undergone a serious effort under new 
management to match its obligations as they result from the 
IETF/ICANN/IANA MoU and USG MoU. So we can consider the IANA 
operations as adequate to their mission (may be not yet, but either 
in a reasonable future or as an ICANN priority).

2. What Kim describes as the "actual experience of the IANA staff" is 
what we all ignore about the reality of the root management 
operations. We had a glimpse with an incident following a request of 
the AFNIC. But most probably may things changed since then, so we 
cannot take advantage from that experience to understand the current 
reality. Let also understand that all this is purely artificial. The 
root data could be maintained on line by each ccTLD manager and 
compiled by every user, including the IANA to obtain a very verified root.

3. The issue we discuss is the control of the IANA. This is a 
political/commercial target by several centers of interests. 
Complains which were quoted where by users of the IANA. There are 
additional concerns by the payers, due to the incertain budget of the 
IANA in the future - due to the reform and due to some new registries 
- for example languages. But no one considered the IANA as the focal 
point of control  of the still centralised Internationalised US 
Internet. And its huge economical value. What is at stake is not if 
Kim carry his job well or not, but who is going to pay him for still 
carrying it better - with additional resources. And why will that 
"who" would like to pay him more?

The alternative is simple:
- either the US wants to keep us as users, and they pay attention at us.
- or we will develop our own governance and data. This was the 
"nuclear option" of Peter de Blanc. It was nuclear because it was blunt.
"us", being 94% of the world.
Both sides have organised/are organising for every option to be 
acceptable. It is the very nature of a distributed network to be 
distributed. For example we will obviously have millions of unrelated 
TLDs. The point is not to fight that evolution. The point is to 
organise it so everybody is happy and it works. The lack of work of 
the IAB and IRTF in that area for now 22 years is depressive.

jfc



At 11:58 27/02/2006, Kim Davies wrote:

> Hi Danny,
>
> Quoting Danny Younger on Sunday February 26, 2006:
> |
> | I would ask you to keep your mind open to other possibilities as we
> | do live in a changing world... the CENTR community (thanks in great
> | measure to the contributions of NASK) has been working for quite some
> | time on an effort to fully automate the IANA functions.
> |
> | Their e-IANA project has developed software to empower each
> | Registry operator to be responsible for their entries in the
> | Root Zone file. A fully working system has been evaluated by
> | 50+ Registries worldwide. Documentation may be reviewed at:
> | http://www.dns.pl/iana/Requirements_for_Automated_Management_of_TLD_IA
> | NA_Database.PDF
> |
> | Their commitment to this project has made them, in my estimation,
> | the leading candidate to manage the IANA functions should the RFI
> | eventually result in an RFP.
>
> For what its worth, my 2c:
>
> I was involved in the e-IANA project from the CENTR side (as the CENTR
> project coordinator), including developing the requirements document you
> cite above.
>
> I now work for IANA and we are adapting the e-IANA software to an
> operational platform that we will use. NASK have fully supported the
> effort and handed IANA the materials to enable this, and we continue
> working cooperatively with CENTR, NASK, and indeed the entire root
> management community on moving it forward.
>
> As the requirements document was based upon speculation by the ccTLD
> community on what was needed and IANA's internal operations, the present
> work is on revising the system based upon the actual operational
> experience of the IANA staff.
>
> It is probably a useful juncture here to note that the IANA isn't solely
> the root zone management function. Indeed, the bulk of its work is in
> its other coordination roles. The e-IANA system is only for the
> automation of parts of the root zone management function, so it would be
> unfair to characterise it as an "effort to fully automate the IANA
> functions".
>
> kim