Re: [DNSOP] On squatting and draft-grothoff-iesg-special-use-p2p-names

[Christian Grothoff <[e-mail]>]

On 01/02/2014 09:00 PM, Paul Hoffman wrote:
> On Jan 1, 2014, at 1:36 PM, Christian Grothoff <[e-mail]> 
> wrote:
> 
>> Well, my point is that if you expect everybody to first get an RFC
>>  through to document everything they are doing, expect squatting.
> 
> We do. And squatters should expect that the name that they are using
>  might eventually be legitimately assigned later, possibly to someone
>  whose intentions are quite different from the squatters. This is how
>  the IETF has worked for over 20 years. The purpose of RFC 6761 is
> not to say "if you start squatting on a TLD, you will be able to
> later get it reserved". It is to say "if there are legitimate errors
> in TLD use, those can be dealt with".

Well, let's just say my reading of the intent of RFC 6761 is different.

> It seems that one of the themes of your responses here is "the TLDs 
> are now being used in software and we won't change that software 
> ever".

You need to learn about about free software here, as you're assuming
that anyone really is in a position to say that. These are GPL projects,
thus anyone can change that software in any way they feel like.  I'm
merely suggesting that my personal opinion is that such a patch is
unlikely to be widely adopted. You're welcome to prove me wrong, writing
the patch should be hardly any work, after all.

> If that is a correct reading, then there really isn't any reason to 
> move forwards on these requests. The folks using the names are 
> squatting, and will continue to do so regardless of the outcome of 
> the application, much less the outcome of ICANN later allocating 
> those TLDs to someone else.

Didn't Apple squat on ".local" and get it reserved using RFC 6761? I
think you're are in total denial of facts that have been discussed in
this context on this very list already.

> On the other hand, if the software using the currently-squatted TLDs
>  are willing to change the names, there is room for discussion. One 
> possibility for RFC 6761 is that an application can specify a use for
> a non-allocated TLD, and a random string (short, typeable, but 
> unlikely to be wanted by anyone in the ICANN space) can be generated
>  for that. So, instead of ".bit" (which has high value), ".gp4x7" 
> could be allocated. That gets the community what they want (a string
>  that ICANN is prevented from later allocating) and follows the
> spirit of RFC 6761.

Sorry, Hollywood-math about the 'value' of a name has also already been
discussed.  However, I'm willing to agree that ".bit" has value to
society --- because it is already used by Namecoin. A name that is not
even used has no established value.