>_From: Geoff Huston
> 
> These are all wonderful assertions, but they bear little detailed scrutiny. 
> 
> You have put together a number of assertions cloaked in some emotive
> wrappers and proffer it as some single way forward. If it were all so easy
> to work through then all this would never have got to where it is today.
> But, oddly enough, there are other views which are quite contrary to the
> ones espoused in your posting.
> 
> The issue is that mistakes in a name structure are hideously difficult to
> undo. Like it or not, names are heavily overloaded on the Internet and they
> have to serve a multiplicity of roles. In this light the assertions you've
> made do not withstand more leisurely analysis. Pulling out the old emotive
> catch cries of the past 5 years is simply not anywhere near enough to make
> progress here. Perhaps we all need to spend some time to think through
> these issues before pulling out the trusty keyboard and blasting away.
> 
> Maybe the following will assist here - to quote from an earlier draft I
> wrote on the subject...


firstly times have changed, the advent of real commercial registrars
means you will have more commercial points of view. these will invariably
be client focused as opposed to the registrar focused paranoia that
is now rampant. to date with have seen very few commercial viewpoints
injected into the .au process.

lets get some facts straight. the dns does not exist for the benefit
of the registrars, it exists as means to convert names to IPs. the
utility of the dns is measurable by the ease in which applicants can
manage to obtain there prefered address not by the degree of security
the registrars have to deal with issuing such names.

integrity of the system is measured by the fact that names convert
correctly to ips addresses as close to 100% as physically possible.
arguments about how the dns should and should not be used are spurious
once the basic integrity ie conversionality is reached.


the secondary issue of integrity as protection of the end user
comes back to the structure of the registrar system. your objections
are easily dealt with by having a central neutral holding body which keeps
the details, such that if a registrars disapears, the end
user is protected.  and for whatever reasons disapear they will.


ie if we examine the role of the registrar it is nothing but a gateway
into the zone files and whois files. there is a up front cost and
a small recurent fee to be collected for the upkeep of the central
registry. the current situation where the registrar owns the client
and locks the client in for a period is the cause of your concerns.
it is is easily dealt with by decoupling ownership of an end user
from the registrar. and there is nothing wrong with this
as subsquent yearly fees are money for jam. it is in fact a bit of
scam to keep charging $50/year once the relavent files are updated.

or to insist that a customer is "licensed" to a perticluar registrar.
once you separate the the registry from the registars. the registrars
is nothing but the commercial agent for once off transactions
and collector of some small anual fee.  the licensing should
be with the central registry. with registrars role is more of a broker into
the various registries. the recurrent fees can be paid to any registrar.

as to the issue of protection of the registry/registrar from the
legal machinations which should rightfully go on then I have no
problem with lobying the government for protection. and thats
almost certainly what needs to happen. 

Vic