Dear colleagues, Thanks to John for this input, and all who've commented so far; but I'd like to use John's comment to slightly re-focus this conversation.
It has seemed to me from the beginning of this discussion, and even the establishment of the special use names registry, that it's fairly easy to get caught up in this aspect of the discussion, which focuses on the implications of using specific strings in specific contexts. In particular, we tend to focus on possible collisions between the special use names registry and the registry representing the public DNS root zone, and on hand-wringing over the fact those registries are operated by different parties. While it's true there's potential for such collisions, and easy to argue that the potential needs attention in forming any solutions, potential collision between those registries is not necessarily the only or the biggest issue we have to address. So I think it would be good to consider the broader issues, which are not specific to which strings are used in which context. It seems to me that "the bigger picture" needs to consider that the use of domain names is diverging in certain ways from practices and procedures for allocating names for use in other contexts, including but not limited to the DNS protocol context. This is leading to various complications, including possible (and even actual) collisions among domain names as used in different contexts; uncertainty around whether a given name can or can't be instantiated in a given context; the interaction between IETF registries and what's essentially protocol development taking place outside of IETF process; and some other architectural and operational issues arising from the fact people find domain names useful outside of DNS protocol (and indeed, they always have). I'd like very much to see us separate issues that depend on *which* strings are used, such as whether anyone's process includes a provision for avoiding a specific type of collision, from issues we'd have even if we've set aside a subset of the namespace structured to avoid policy issues arising from the use of the domain name space in the DNS root. As a practical focus: sometime ago, DNSOP adopted and then parked https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-dnsop-alt-tld/. This draft proposes a special use names registry entry that would be expected to function as the rightmost label in names intended for resolution outside of the DNS protocol: something of a meta-protocol switch. Assuming we understand the problems a bit better now than we did before, particularly given the experience of .onion, which of the problems we've seen would be solved by telling people "You can use any domain names you want, but the safe choice for avoiding operational and policy collisions with DNS protocol and namespace is to root your chosen domain name space under .alt"? Which technical issues would persist? If, as some people have argued, the only problem we really have here is separating domain names that might be used in the DNS from domain names available for use in other resolution contexts, it may be that ".alt" is both necessary and sufficient to support future experiment and development in the use of domain names. Will that do it? If not, why not? The question of how to think about name resolution context in the internet in general-- even separately from domain names-- is the departure point for the ARCING BoF. But the concerns addressed in the special-names-problem draft, regarding how domain names are used by DNS and possibly other name resolution protocols, seem to be still within scope for DNSOP. thanks, Suzanne On Mar 28, 2016, at 12:35 PM, John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> wrote: >> I understand Andrew's point to be that the decision process regarding >> trademark, etc., disputes will >> take place as part of the review process inherent in meeting the >> requirements for publishing 'an IETF >> "Standards Action" or "IESG Approval" specification', which is required in >> RFC 6761 for adding a name >> to the registry. > > I read it somewhat differently: trademark issues are not technical and > insofar as they're anyone's problem, they're ICANN's. There's lots of > other non-technical arguments about who gets to put names where, such > as the endless argument about .AFRICA which is now taking a detour > through U.S. courts. > > One of the things to consider in a 6761 evaluation is whether it's > really a technical proposal or whether someone's trying to make an end > around the ICANN process. If it's really a trademark dispute or > something else that isn't technically different from the DNS, it's not > our problem. > > R's, > John > > > > _______________________________________________ > DNSOP mailing list > DNSOP@ietf.org > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dnsop _______________________________________________ DNSOP mailing list DNSOP@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dnsop
