As I recall, the Cooperative Research And Development Arrangement/Agreement is primarily used by the department of energy when giving private contractors access to DOE laboratories for unique kinds of projects and the gov't has a "co-ownership" of intellectual property resulting from the projects. Asking why ICANN would receive a CRADA gives rise to some interesting speculations: Because CRADAs seem to involve giving a non governmental entity access to a government facility, one might inquire "what facility for what R & D or other purpose"? Oh, yeah, and "where did NIST come from?" Assuming that the facility involved is NIST, the CRADA might allow the ICANNITEs to place their "a" root server kept under lock and key on NIST premises. And since the gov't was "running" the "a' server, it could not be sued and ICANN would have "cover" when the ICANN committee on the root sever announces the heist.(A well founded rumor of some months ago had some gov't discussion underway in 1997 that centered on NIST taking on the operation of the a root under the pretence of creating a "standard" and kept at NIST.) So tomorrow Becky asks Jim Rutt why haven't you signed the registrar criteria. Rutt says because I am not going to let you put us out of business. And by the way my attornies advise me that, given your hostility to my company, I have no choice but to terminate our participation in the cooperative agreement effective today. Becky says OK effective immediately we begin to operate the "A' root from our facilities at NIST. Vixie points F to the NIST a server, so does jun murai and the european servers and ones directly under US gov't control. But not all are under government control. NSI will continue to run its machines and its "a" server. one or more of the 13 servers will stay loyal to the NSI server. In fact the large commercial ISPs will find out that to keep the net from fracturing they will need to point at both the NIST A root and the NSI A root. NSI will continue to register .com as will NIST. Becky no doubt has a policy worked out to handle conflicts. NSI, in order to increase the popularity of it's root, will admit new TLDs into its root quite quickly. Hopefully we will have action in court and congress quickly that will seek answers to the sell out by NTIA of american internet interests that likely dates back to at least the beginning of the summer of 1997 when ATT, IBM and Oracle first proposed to Magaziner and Becky how they would answer a US government RFC to build a new dot com registration service and put NSI out of business. discussionms that opened up to embrace CORE by the end of the summer of 1997. One possible reason for magaziner and Burrs willingness to accomdate the E C point of view was the liklihood of a quid proquo from the EC on the privacy commission statutes deadline that loomed on Oct 25 1998 and has now passed quite without consequence. **************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to seven years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA Exec summaries, glossary etc (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) http://cookreport.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] What's Behind Ican and How it Will Impact the Future of the Internet http://cookreport.com/icannregulate.shtml ****************************************************************
