.GP, .TM, .TV and .MQ to be Removed ?
-----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 11:34:21 MET DST 1998 ---------
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 ---------
Hi all (sorry for the cross posting, but as so many things and mis-information has been thrown around, I thought it would be best to reply to a few places), Recently (though not too recently, July 2nd actually), the "conseil d'etat" of France approved a rather extensive document with loads of info about computing in general and a few things about DNS in particular. The whole text of the documenbt (in french) can be found at: http://www.internet.gouv.fr/francais/textesref/rapce98/accueil.htm with the DNS bits found at: http://www.internet.gouv.fr/francais/textesref/rapce98/rap2.htm#5 There are some interesting recomendations there where the doc says that exploitation of ".gp" & ".mq" by private operators should be stopped whereas ".pf" & ".wf" should be allowed to continue (note: there are no domains delegated in ".pf" or in ".wf". .pf being under control of Inria, and .wf under control of the post-office). For whatever reason, the documnet doesn't mention ".gf" for French Guyanne (also a french DOM like Guadeloupe & Martinique, with a local ISP handling registrations there, and the local companies are getting the domains that they want/need ) or ".re" for Reunion (another french TOM, but with no registrations. It's delegated to Inria... notice a pattern?) As far as I know, nobody has asked for any removal from the root of ".gp" and/or ".mq". That (as happens quite often) is just information intoxication by Jim Fleming. So we can drop this thread of gp & mq getting removed from the root for now... With regards to the ITU confusing local & global matters (reported by Einar), the ITU has nothing to do with this report of France, it just happened that Bob Shaw (who happens to be from the ITU) forwarded the link to a list, presumably when he stumbled across it, and I imagine its because he found it interesting (the DNS part). In respect to IANA not being diligent in delegating TLDs, about 10 years ago no government gave a damn about this internet-thing and just let people get on with it. The policy that IANA has always followed about ccTLDs is to not get involved. The fact that countries come and go, and that internal politics change cannot be blamed to IANA. Another bit of intoxication by Jim Fleming is that some TLDs are being managed by people who do not reside in the country described (and reside in Texas or wherever). The policy for the initial delegation of a TLD is that the admin contact has to reside in the country/area/region. That policy has been followed. The fact that some admins get/want/request/hire help or whatever from people who reside elsewhere doesn't seem to me like a problem. If the admin contact for Turkmenistan prefers to have ".tm" run by people in the UK, that's his prerogative (as long as the government of Turkmenistan doesn't complain, and thus designate a different admin contact). IANA chose to use ISO-3166 as a base for the "country-code" TLD's. This was probably not a perfect choice, but it's a long way from being a BAD choice. IANA (as itself has admitted) is not in the business of defining what is or what isn't a country. To be honest the actual concept of "country" is something pretty vague. You have Scotland Wales and England as countries, but the UN doesn't have one seat for each (just one -a veto seat- for the UK). Most of the countries of the EU had more or less accepted one of the ex-Yugoslavia fragments as a new country: Macedonia. Greece decided it woudln't recognize it because it had a province under the same name (lots of convoluted things later and now the country has a long name with the word Macedonia in it). Is Corea one or two countries (north and south). Are Tibet and Taiwan part of China or not? What about Hong-Kong? What about countries that split up or join. When does a one-country-territory become a two-country-territory? Areas that some countries recognize as countries are not recognized by others. What about border disputes? Western Sahara? East Timor? Quebec? All of this is pure and simply POLITICS. There is no "universal" country-recognizer that all governments accepta as valid. Creating ANOTHER system of recognizing countries (which will obviously have different opinions and become highly political) is just asking for trouble. The ISO-3166 list is widely regarded (though not universally so by any means) as a valid system to be able to use to assign *codes* to regions/countries/areas. These regions/countries/areas normally get added in there by direct request of a government (here it goes a bit in circles...). MQ/GP/WF/PF/GF/RE and FX where *all* added at the request of the French government. In other words, they are there BECAUSE the french government asked ISO to add them (check it out). Recently, the french government has asked to remove FX from the list, and I believe the latest ISO-3166 list has dumped it. France doesn't want ".fx" in ISO-3166, so they asked and had it removed. In the same manner, ".fx" has been removed from the IANA roots (because France DIDN'T WANT IT IN THERE). If people have a problem about what countries/territories have or don't have a working TLD, take it up with their governments. If you want New York to have its own ".ny" then get the USA government to ask for ".NY" to be entered into ISO-3166 and take it from there, don't start bumping IANA for not having a certain code for a certain area. As far as all of this concerns my area (I live in Guadeloupe, and the provider I work at operates in both Guadeloupe and Martinique), to be honest I don't know what will happen in the next 6 months. Then again none of us know what will happen in the next 6 months wrt "traditional" ccTLDs in general, IP assignments and IANA. A good bet would probably be "business as usual", with some organisational changes and some formalisation of structures. I know that providers operating in Guadeloupe & Martinique are happy with how things are being done. I know that companies and infrastructure (libraries, airports, local port, local government etc) in Guadeloupe & Martinique are happy with how things are being done. I know that Guadeloupe and Martinique are proud of their "particularity" and don't feel just as French as (for example) Paris. French yes, but with a difference... (If you go to St. Martin, an island which is in the Caribbean and is half Dutch, half French, with the French part being a province of Guadeloupe, you'll actually find that the language they speak is English!!! with French -despite being the "official" language- very often not being even understood). What I ask is that if everyone here in Guadeloupe & Martinique is happy with how things are being done, nobody is getting rich out of this, all providers are in agreement (even though in other areas these same providers are at each outhers throats because they are competitors), then why change the status-quo? As a side note, I'd like to add that as yet, nobody from the government in France mainland has even tried to get in touch (phone, email, letter, fax) with me or any of the admin contacts for either ".gp" or ".mq" to ask/say/announce/inform/get informed about what is going on with these two TLDs, so I think it would be a bit bizarre to say the least if they suddenly "vanished". If one looks a little further, one will see that given the current political situation, the status of Guadeloupe and Martinique will probably soon change to be similar to that of French Polinesia and Wallis And Futune, so if TLDs are allowed there, they might as well be left here... Having said that, despite my disagreement with it, if the French government decides to eliminate/redelegate ".gp" and/or ".mq", then that is something they are completely in their right to do, just in the same way that if tomorrow they decide to shut down ".fr", they have the right to do it. They *are* sovereign here in Guadeloupe and in Martinique. Yours, John Broomfield. GP & MQ NIC. -------- Logged at Mon Sep 14 21:45:11 MET DST 1998 ---------
John Charles Broomfield wrote: <snip>
Having said that, despite my disagreement with it, if the French government decides to eliminate/redelegate ".gp" and/or ".mq", then that is something they are completely in their right to do, just in the same way that if tomorrow they decide to shut down ".fr", they have the right to do it. They *are* sovereign here in Guadeloupe and in Martinique.
Yours, John Broomfield. GP & MQ NIC.
Who is the most concerned by a TLD removal ? its registry/"owner" ? or its SLDs registrants seeing their names vanishing in cyberspace ? There should be mecanisms to prevent the arbitrary names removal you describe. Even if no decision was taken by the french gov, yet. -- Jean-Christophe PRAUD - LUDEXPRESS http://www.ludexpress.com http://www.nicwine.net http://www.irsc.ah.net 3:213 WINE Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu n'gah Bill R'lyeh Wgah'nagl fhtagn -------- Logged at Tue Sep 15 16:30:17 MET DST 1998 ---------
In any case, the situation for ccTLDs at the moment is that the Govt in question has full say of what happens with any given ccTLD, so you need to direct your question to the Govt of France. if the Govt of Fance wants to eliminate a ccTLD, or make it stop offering its sesrvice, I see very little that anyone can do from outrside the due processes of the Souvereign Nation holder.nnn The current IANA policy is to do what the controlling Govt wants done. I do not see a lot of change that can be made in this business of trying to fix things so that someone in the Internet can manage ccTLDs that are controlled by Souvereign Nations, without taking the case to the UN. I will not object if someone wants to do that, but I do not want to be involved with any such action. Frankly, as I have mentioned several times now, I see no reason why we should even discuss this since it is clearly an internal affair of France. Cheers...\Stef } }John Charles Broomfield wrote: } }<snip> } }> Having said that, despite my disagreement with it, if the French government }> decides to eliminate/redelegate ".gp" and/or ".mq", then that is something }> they are completely in their right to do, just in the same way that if }> tomorrow they decide to shut down ".fr", they have the right to do it. }> They *are* sovereign here in Guadeloupe and in Martinique. }> }> Yours, John Broomfield. }> GP & MQ NIC. } }Who is the most concerned by a TLD removal ? }its registry/"owner" ? }or its SLDs registrants seeing their names vanishing in cyberspace ? } }There should be mecanisms to prevent the arbitrary names removal you }describe. } }Even if no decision was taken by the french gov, yet. } }-- }Jean-Christophe PRAUD - LUDEXPRESS http://www.ludexpress.com }http://www.nicwine.net http://www.irsc.ah.net 3:213 WINE }Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu n'gah Bill R'lyeh Wgah'nagl fhtagn -------- Logged at Wed Sep 16 04:24:53 MET DST 1998 ---------
participants (4)
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jbroom＠manta.outremer.com -
jc.praud＠ludexpress.com -
JimFleming＠unety.net -
Stef＠nma.com