[dns-wg] Re: NTIA NoI: does anyone care?

On Oct 21, 2008, at 3:16 AM, Edward Lewis wrote:
> At 11:20 +0200 10/21/08, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
>> One may think that replying to a US government consultation (whatever
>> the content of the reply) means an approval of its unilateral  
>> decision
>> to manage the root...
> Then submit that comment to them.  Here it counts for nothing.

Yep.  However, as long as other governments support the US  
governmental role, I suspect comments along these lines will not carry  
much weight.  Not to stray too far into international geo-politics,  
but getting governments to stop telling the US Government in private  
that they want the US government to continue the role they currently  
hold would probably be more beneficial in reaching the goal I assume  
you desire.

>> After all, why such a consultation for an international resource is
>> managed by one governement?
> Because they started it, have been doing it, and are paying for the  
> current operations.

Yes, the US government started it and have been doing it (and other  
governments keep telling them to continue doing it), but they are NOT  
paying for the current operations, at least IANA operations.

And to be clear, pragmatically speaking, the international resource in  
question (the root zone) is _not_ managed by one government.  The US  
government role has, to date, been limited to authorizing changes  
proposed by IANA.  They do not propose changes nor have they ever  
altered a change request.  Actual management of the root zone is done  
pretty much as it has always been done since RFC 1591 was published,  
by folks within IANA, VeriSign, and the root operators.

Regards,
-drc