[IP] more on ** Are "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?
Begin forwarded message:
From: Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 12, 2005 4:53:53 PM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: "Robert C. Atkinson" <rca53@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] Are "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?
From: "Robert C. Atkinson" <rca53@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
It would be interesting (and perhaps useful to WSIS delegates
heading to Tunis) to get IPers' reaction to today's Wall Street
Journal editorial board recommendation ("Breaking Up Is Hard to
Do") that the least worst solution to the dispute about the future
"control of the Internet" is to allow national root servers
("split root"). Excerpts from the article:
The real issue is not whether there can be multiple competing systems
of roots but whether those systems consistent with one another.
I believe that we have reached a point where we largely agree that
the net would be fine with multiple systems of roots if all were
operated using the exact same root zone file (modulo the small
changes needed to designate the name servers that comprise each root.)
I'd also add that I personally have not analyzed the impact of DNSSEC
on this and think it would be useful if a DNSSEC expert were to weigh-
in on the question of how multiple, but otherwise identical, systems
of roots would far in a world in which DNSSEC is used.
The question that I perceive is the real question is whether those
different systems of roots can vary from one another in this way:
Each system of roots would (presumably) carry the same core set of
top level domains (probably the NTIA/ICANN/Verisign set of about 250
TLDs that most folks are using today). However, some of these roots
may carry boutique top level domains - perhaps like my .ewe - that
are aspiring to gain enough buy-in/market-share to be accepted into
the TLD inventory of enough of the root systems that they become, in
effect, members of the core suite of TLDs. In other words -
selection of TLDs by the normal mechanisms that determine which
products succeed in a competitive marketplace and which do not.
I believe that this kind of core-set of TLDs on all root systems and
a variable suite of boutique TLDs is a safe and workable mechanism.
Other people hold a contrary point of view.
Discussion on this would be useful, but we should all remember that
there is really no means through which such a situation can be
prevented except imposing, with the force of law, one catholic root.
--karl--
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