Hello Brian E Carpenter -- and all ... There is a very simple solution (which ORSC has employed now for several years) to your phantom problem (see your message below). It is part of our primary purpose to solve this problem, rather than intensify conflicts in some kind of power grab, or fight over who is rightly designated to be in control of the use of the Internet. In our view, the Internet users are and should be in control of their use, and should accordingly have a choice in the matter. So, it should be no surprise that all Internet users do have a choice, in that their choice of root service provider is lodged in the root service IP address that they, in their free individual wisdom, choose to put in their own password controlled "root server entry field" in their own computer's TCP/IP tables. They exercise this choice by "voting early and often" every time they use their chosen root service to resolve a DNS name. There is no law, and no contract with Internet users, that might force them to only use the ICANN root servers. In fact, if you look around the Internet, you will see that every Intra-Lan and Extra-Lan has its own private root servers with subsets of the total set of available TLDs. This is all part and parcel of the design of the Internet and the DNS service. The users of the Internet are free to decide these issues for themselves, with no global design or control scheme in place to control individual user's choices in this matter. That is why every attached computer or Local Area Network with a NAT box has total control over this matter of choice. Go read your copy of the Internet DNS Standards. That some uninformed users believe that the ICANN root is the only root, is a myth propagated by those who are interested in denying access to the rest of the net to those users who are ill informed. That ORSC does not have the marketing resources to overcome this ignorance may or may not be unfortunate, but this fact does not change the fact that the ORSC root service exists and is used without causing any problems for those who are unaware of it, as many on this list seem to be unaware. We simply do not deny the existence of ICANN, and strive mightily to avoid all possible conflicts among the names of honored TLDs so as to avoid conflicts among the combined ICANN and ORSC root's TLDs. ORSC has resolved a large number of conflicts in the past, and stands ready to help resolve any new conflicts, and also, of course, strives to discourage new conflicts from arising. We cannot say the same for ICANN. (And neither can ICANN;-)... ORSC was highly successful in this effort, until ICANN chose to collide with one of our ORSC pre-existing TLDs, and the refusal of ICANN (and others such as IETF, IAB and ISOC) to recognize this reality and to act responsibly to resolve the conflict has led to its continued existence, which diminishes the value of the conflicted TLD name to all parties to the conflict. Conflicted names simply have lesser value, for what I assume are obvious reasons. So, in spite of the ICANN Mission to avoid conflicts among TLD names in the Internet DNS root system, ICANN is the only party that has deliberately chosen to knowingly create a conflict in the aggregated collective root. ORSC has worked hard to avoid all such conflicts by negotiation and coordination, and has been successful with all instances except with ICANN, while ICANN denies our existence and the existence of all our other TLDs which may well exceed in number all the TLD names in the ICANN root. This, in our ORSC view, violates all aspects of the concept of mutual coordination and conflict avoidance. ORSC accepts the concepts of "a single composite root" which is possible if the involved parties will all recognize each other and deal with each other fairly and openly, but ORSC does not accept the arbitrary and capricious central control and conflict generation policies of ICANN, which installs in the Internet a Single Point of Failure, in place of coordinated stability with distributed architectures such as the original Internet, which was intentionally designed to be free of any single points of failure. ICANN (and apparently IAB and IETF) appear to be dedicated to having some kind of central control and accompanying single point of failure. ORSC is dedicated to maintaining a coordinated conflict free DNS ROOT, and expects that in due course, ICANN, IAB, IETF and ISOC might see the light and find ways to negotiate a resolution of the only existing TLD name conflict in the present situation. In our ORSC view, the responsibility for negotiating a resolution lies directly with the two conflicting registries, or with their superior organizations. ORSC does not directly control the registries that it recognizes, and so expects them to directly seek resolution of any conflicts that might arise. ICANN TLDs exist in a top down control structure and we must so assume that the lack of interest of the ICANN sponsored conflicting registry is directed by ICANN, which casts a blind eye on the entire problem, pretending that the conflict does not exist. If you don't know what this conflict is, you need to do a bit of research, and also take note that if you are unaware of the single existing TLD name conflict, then you have no grounds to claim that it causes any harm to anyone you know. In the ORSC view, the conflict harms the conflictees more than anyone else, and in our ORSC view it is the ICANN Board of Directors that has asserted itself in a deliberate act to knowingly create the only existing conflict. The BoD was clearly informed of the impending conflict, but chose to ignore the notice without any response there-to. In the face of such denial, ORSC has chosen to take no action to resolve the conflict until ICANN (and IETF, IAB, and ISOC) take public notice of the fact of their conflict creation. It is my personal opinion that the ICANN sponsored conflicting TLD registry would and should have a strong interest in resolving the conflict, but that ICANN has instructed it to avoid any form of recognition and thus to avoid any activities that might lead to resolution of the conflict. So, at this point, the ball is in the ICANN court, since ORSC has always been available and ready to help work on finding an equitable resolution any time that ICANN and its chosen conflicting registry might seek to operate in some honorable way to seek a resolution. I am certain that the cost of resolution will be vastly smaller than the wasted value caused by pretending that the conflict does not exist. In the meantime, the ORSC root is in use by a vast number of Internet Users, with equal or better stability than the ICANN root, and ORSC users can see the entire Internet because we include all ICANN TLDs in our collective ORSC root servers. After all, all TLDs should be visible to all Internet Users who wish to see them. ORSC fulfills this desire in the marketplace, and ICANN does not. So who do you suspect does the better job? Cheers...\Stef At 8:50 AM +0200 7/29/02, Brian E Carpenter wrote: >Keith Moore wrote: > > > > > Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>: > > > >"alternate DNS roots" aren't part of DNS. if someone wants to propose > > > >a URN based on a DNS-like system with its own root zone, they're free > > > >to do so and see if they can get support for it. For that matter if > > > >someone wants to propose a URN based on some other naming system that > > > >doesn't look like DNS they're free to do that also. > > > > > > > >But trying to make "alternate DNS roots" fit into a DNS URI scheme is > > > >like trying to make OIDs or some other naming scheme fit into a DNS > > > >URI scheme. We don't need to do that - there's a separate scheme for > > > >OIDs. And trying to do so would make DNS URIs far more complex than > > > >they need to be - for no real benefit. For instance, how do you > > > >assign names to the alternate roots? > > > > > > By specifying the root name as a prefix? > > > > great. then people can start arguing about who gets to maintain the > > set of names for ... er... what were formally known as roots. > > most of us have better things to do with our time. > > > > > I agree that alternate roots are not part of DNS as long as you > > > contrain your universe to be the ICANN/USG published set of DNS > > > names, but there are other things floating around the net that > > > do use the DNS protocols and do resolve names for people who > > > choose to use them. > > > > there are other protocols on the net than those defined by IETF > > standards, too. the fact that they exist does not compel IETF to > > endorse them. > >Amusingly, Richard has, by suggesting that we should name the >"alternate roots", just discovered why the whole "alternate root" >story is nonsense. > >Since the DNS is a hierarchical namespace, and since trees have one >root, if you add "alternate roots", you then discover that you have >to uniquely name them, i.e. insert a new unique root "above" the various >"alternate roots". > >Or to put it another way, if we need several naming authorities, one for >each "alternate root", we're going to need a naming authority to uniquely >name those naming authorities. > >Funny how you can't change mathematical facts, isn't it? > >However, back in the real world, the existing unique root works just fine. > > Brian