Re: [homenet] WGLC on "redact" and "homenet-dot"

[james woodyatt <[e-mail]>]

On Dec 12, 2016, at 13:32, Ted Lemon <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> That is not an option for this working group.   Whether or not it is a good idea is another topic, but that option is definitely not an option for this working group, because it is not in our charter.   If some other working group _had already gotten_ such a TLD, then we could talk about using it, but placing such a process in the critical path doesn't make sense.

The procedural argument for using a special-purpose gTLD (instead of assigning IETF with a new general-purpose gTLD and making a special-purpose subdomain of that) seems to rest on language in the charter that I would think is pretty broad, and maybe broad enough to think it’s really either “both" or “neither" that are really in the charter.

>> The working group will also liason with external
>> standards bodies where it is expected that there are normative
>> dependencies between the specifications of the two bodies.

I say this because I’m really not thrilled by the prospect of *this* (from your original message):

>>> The downside to this approach is that we won't know whether the outcome will be success or failure for a long time, possibly several years.   And the outcome could very well be failure.

That “possibly several years” bit is what really stopped me in my tracks.

I would strongly prefer that we avoid the risks above by using a special-purpose subdomain of a gTLD owned by IETF. I don’t really care which gTLD we use, and if “arpa” is really the only reasonable choice, then so be it. However, I can imagine a world where the Working Group decides that “arpa” is unacceptable for whatever reason and decides that it’s better to wait until IETF has another domain with a better name. And I’m not ready to tell them I think that would be a very bad idea.

Actually, I think it’s probably a very bad idea. But, I’m in favor of using a subdomain of “arpa” instead of some new gTLD, so I’m already in a minority, and I’m prepared to lose that argument.


--james woodyatt <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>>