John B. Reynolds wrote
> As an advocate of expansion of the TLD space and policies
> that would protect domain registrants from exploitation based
> on registry lock-in, I prefer to take my chances with the
> business community than with the incumbent TLD registries.
A good deal of what you said in your post makes sense. But, while the above
paragraph may be a fair assessment of the present deadlock, it's
a very dangerous argument because it suggests we must have one or the other.
That's not necessarily so, I don't think. It should be possible to design a
DNSO that doesn't give unfair advantage to one interest over another. All it
would take is a little more maturity on the part of the participants and a
realization that any disproportionate control, any whatsoever, is going to
deter the development of the Internet.
If the players in this affair refuse to understand that, then the Internet
is going to have to be run by some more socially- and economically-educated
and responsible people. The last word hasn't been said, not by a long shot,
about who is going to run this thing. There may not be many administrators
in the world with the necessary formation and background to do this job
right, but there are some. If this intolerable situation persists, in which
infantile egos - and I'm talking here about Kent Crispin and Amadeu Abril i
Abril and Martin Schwimmer and Michael Heltzer, but also about Dennis
Jennings and Fay Howard and, yes, Einar Stefferud - are trying to wrest
control for themselves and their cohorts, then people who understand the
need for unhampered growth of the Internet, wherever they are, will have to
be found, or find the Internet, and take charge.
