Re: [DNSOP] Some distinctions and a request - Have some class?

[Suzanne Woolf <[e-mail]>]

(no hats)

> On Jul 4, 2015, at 3:12 AM, Patrik Fältström <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Once again:
> 
> ICANN do say what strings in the name space should be TLDs.
> 
> IETF do say what strings in the name space should NOT be TLDs.

In the interests of precision in our discussion: I’m not convinced that’s actually the case, and I’m not convinced it’s consistent with what we’ve said in the conversation so far. I *think* it loses exactly the distinction that we started the thread with.

It seems to me, from long experience of both organizations, that ICANN says what names should and shouldn’t be in the DNS root zone— a specific instantiation of the namespace, tied to use in a specific database (the public DNS) and the DNS protocol. (Enormous chunks of the Applicant Guidebook, and of the deliberations in the new gTLD program, were devoted to discussion of what names should *not* be in the root zone.)

It further seems to me that the IETF says what names it considers to be in the namespace for other reasons, such as enabling deployment of new protocols (as already pointed out upthread, it’s perhaps unfortunate but undoubtedly true that people are doing this and we may want to enable it).

Avoiding collisions between DNS and non-DNS use of domain names is probably important to us (to some degree that’s what we’re trying to decide). But I have thought, and continue to think, that we make a serious mistake if we regard it as our purpose to “say what strings in the name space should NOT be TLDs.”  The IETF delegated that responsibility long ago to someone else, and for good reason.

> The rest are just strings waiting to end up in one of the two groups.

I’m not sure I agree with this either, but will have to think further.


best,
Suzanne