Sorry Richard;-)... If France wants to decommision ccTLDs that have been registered by their "departments" of GP and MQ, then France should internally exert its influence over its "Departments of GP and MQ" to get them to "voluntarily" relinquish their ISO-3166 ccTLDs with official letters of relinquishment to whoever has authority over the DNS root. I do not see any reason for IANA or anyone else to get involved with the internal affairs of France. But, of course, if France wants to let the ITU-T or ISO get involved in its internal affairs, that is their privilege. After all, those ccTLD names were simply copied by IANA from the ISO-3166 register of ISO/ITU-T country codes. This situation is analogous to some division of IBM, such as LOTUS, getting its own <lotus.com> SLD under .COM, and the Soft-Switch Division of LOTUS getting its own <SSW.COM>. If IBM does not want this to happen, it has all the power it needs internally to quickly resolve it all! It is not any affair of anyone else. The origin of the ccTLD list is ISO-3166, in which France clearly had a large voice in establishment. The ISO-3166 two letter codes were also written into the standards for X.400 and X.500, as top level "Country Codes" such as (c=us, c=fr, c=gp, c=mq, etc) to be used in X.500 "Distinguished Name Attribute Value Assertions" for the purpose of distinguishing lower level distinguished name attribute value assertions that are to be registered under each Country Code, ala DNS TLD/SLD/3LD/..."attribute" levels. No one could register any ADMD or Distinguished Name under any generic top level code. On country codes were allowed in the "root". There never were no "non-country-code" "country codes" in the ISO or ITU-T worlds. I have heared rumors about establishment of "XX" as a WorldWide non-country-code ISO-3166 "country-code". Maybe someone from ITU-T can clarify this. In X.400, (C=) codes were to be used similarly in a separate Naming tree such as c=us/ADMD=MCI/PRMD=BOEING/DEPT=Corp/... At one point I drafted up a proposal for how to register (c=us/ADMD=INTX) for the Internet, calling on IANA to establish a register that would on request enter DNS names such as (c=US/ADMD=INTX/PRMD=nma.com) on behalf of the registrant of <nma.com>. We even used some NSF funds to US Trademark the name "INTX" for this use, and we intended to allow it to also be used under any ccTLD. This proposal never went anywhere because there was no demand for such PRMD names;-)... One reason was that all the ADMD operators (such as ATT, MCI, DBP, BT, SPRINT, et al) more or less insisted that "The Internet" actually operate a central ADMD MTA to accept mail from all other ADMDs, as a relay, to then deliver the mail to Internet recipients. We could never find anyone to pretend to be "The Interent" and run such an ADMD MTA;-)... At least, we were able to clearly determine that X.400 was dead from this experience. The whole concept just died because of the implications for billing and settlement;-)... Internet users already pay for all the costgs of sending and recieving their, and there was no way to arrange for mail delivery to be paid for through INTX;-)... I still have the INTX Internet-Draft in my archives if anyone wants to reactivate it;-)... All that ISO/ITU-T naming structure was put in place in the first X.400 1984 standards, and in the 1988 X.500 standards, and it appears that no one was ever concerned about c=MQ or c=GP until now, and they now only seem to be concerend about this in terms of he DNS TLD assignment. I know this now because I was involved in the process then from 1988-1993. I was even employed during 1989 as a consultant working for Dave Crocker at The Wollongong Group;-)... He paid for my participation in the NIST OIW Workshop Meetings. I was also involved (1988-1993) without compensation in the US ANSI Registration Authority Committee that struggled mightily with many of these same name registration issues. The ANSI register for names under (c=us) has never been populated with any significant number of names. ANSI names cost $2000, for perpetual care registration. Registrants pay once, for perpetual registration. Financially, it works like Perpetual Care Cemetary Plots. Such care is expensive, and accumulates a lot of dead registrations. Samll annual fees work much better;-)... So, this MQ and GP challenge development is all very interesting. But, I remain convinced that the matter is only of local concern to France, GP and MQ;-)... The interent community should just stay out of it. The ISO-3166 registry is under ISO control, and IANA has only used it as it stands without question. So, IANA has no authority (or any evident interest) in the assignment of ISO-3166 codes;-)... I do not recommend that anyone in the Internet get involved in any way! The entire mess, such as it is, belongs to ITU-T, ISO and France. Cheers...\Stef } } }-----Original Message----- }From: Richard J. Sexton <richard at SEXTON.COM> }To: DOMAIN-POLICY at LISTS.INTERNIC.NET <DOMAIN-POLICY at LISTS.INTERNIC.NET> }Date: Sunday, September 13, 1998 11:05 AM }Subject: Re: .GP, .TM, .TV and .MQ to be Removed ? } }>At 09:05 AM 9/13/98 +0800, Dave Crocker wrote: }>>At 02:49 PM 9/12/98 -0400, Richard J. Sexton wrote: }>>>I also note that Jon Postel wants to see .TV and .TM removed }>>>from the root zone, but NSI/NSF prevented that. }>> }>>please provide documentation for both of these assertions. }> }>Knock it off Dave, you were in the room in Singapore }>when Don Telage announced this. Why didn't you ask him }>for documentation? } }Again, I think that we need to look at the more }global issue. What TLDs would Jon Postel (aka IANA) }be proposing to remove from the legacy Root Name }Server Cluster if the U.S. Government turns control }over to him ? } }Does that list contain ? }.GP }.MQ }.TV }.TM }.CC }.NATO } }In my opinion registries and consumers have a right to }know this well in advance. The other RSCs also need }to socialize these proposed DELETIONS. Just because }France tells Jon Postel to delete .MQ and .GP and to }take away someone's IP addresses, I am not sure }that he should do that. There has to be some checks }and balances in the system. } }Where does the IAB and IETF enter this discussion ? }It is one thing for the IETF to stand and cheer and endorse }Jon Postel. It is another thing to be responsible }for potential changes to the DNS that could impact }companies, countries, etc. Jon Postel has delegated }TLDs to people that clearly do not have the local }support that some people claim. Now governments }like France are going to try to have those TLDs }removed. This is not stability. Stability can only come }from open, fair hearings on these matters. } }In my opinion, the major RSCs should prepare a public }response to France that indicates that they can NOT }remove a TLD just because France says to do that. I }think that the current operators of the TLD(s) should }have some opportunity to have some say about the }past, present and future plans for the TLD. This is the }only way we can have some stability in the system. } }Just in case someone walked in late... } }@@@@ http://www.gtld-mou.org/pab/mail-archive/00298.html } }"Lastly, it is necessary to end rapidly the exploitation, by }private operators having received no mandate from the French }authorities, of the management of top level domains corresponding }to French overseas departments (.gp for Guadeloupe, .mq for Martinique,...). }IANA effectively considers that these are "national" domains. The }French government must therefore request IANA to refuse to }recognize these operators or to allocate them IP addresses." } }@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ } } }Jim Fleming }Unir Corporation - http://www.unir.com }End-2-End: VPC(Java)---C+ at ---<IPv8>---C+ at ---(Java)VPC }http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/unir.txt }http://www.ddj.com/index/author/idx10133.htm } } -------- Logged at Mon Sep 14 11:37:42 MET DST 1998 ---------