Re: [Ianaplan] control and negotiation (was Re: draft-ietf-ianaplan-icg-response-02 working group last call)

[Miles Fidelman <[e-mail]>]

David Conrad wrote:
> Miles,
>
> On Nov 6, 2014, at 6:19 AM, Miles Fidelman <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> More specifically, I'm concerned with avoiding any confusion or operational disruption in the event of future conflicts among the parties involved in oversight, management, and/or performance of the IANA functions - particularly in the case where a transition of contractor might occur on less then friendly terms.
>>
>> Under such situations, it seems at least possible, if not likely, that litigation might ensue and/or that parties might operate competing registries - causing operational confusion at a minimum, and possibly more serious disruptions to smooth operation of the net.
> We're talking about the protocol parameter registries, right?
>
> I'm honestly curious: could you describe the "serious disruptions to smooth operation of the net" or "operational confusion" that would occur in the event of future conflicts relating to the IANA trademark and/or IANA.ORG domain?
>
>

Kind of depends on the degree to which various developers depend on the 
various registries published under iana.org, and perhaps on the degree 
to which anybody relies on automatic download of registry contents.

For example, the /etc/services file in Debian includes this statement:
#Updated from http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers

I expect other operating systems do similar things.  A lot of systems 
could break, rather precipitously, if iana.org went offline, or the file 
were moved somewhere else, or the file were corrupted - particularly if 
it happened just before a major release cycle.

To me, that would be a "serious disruption" or at the very least 
"operational confusion"


Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra