Re: [Internetgovtech] Transition to the web

[John Curran <[e-mail]>]

On Jul 12, 2014, at 6:12 PM, Miles Fidelman <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 3. IETF's role is defined in the MOU, but seems to be in addition to, and/or enabled by the DOC-ICANN contract.

Oh please...

Thought-exercise: If the IETF were to specify a entirely new naming protocol
or new Internet address protocol (including a new associated registry space),
the protocol specification by the IETF would, upon adoption of the appropriate
IANA Considerations section, cause a registry to come into being.  On day one,
the policy authority for that registry would be the IAB, with the IANA doing 
whatever form of administration was specified in the considerations section.

Now one would hope that if the IETF created a general-purpose registry space
(where pieces where to be eventually assigned to real-world entities rather 
than simply code points) that it would leverage existing organizations which 
strive to represent the affected user communities (e.g. ICANN, RIRs) but such 
delegation is _not_ inevitable.

The registry spaces are _created_ as a result of IETF's adoption of a protocol 
specification, and IETF wisely realizes it should provide for administration 
of same (hence the IANA).   It's probably not worth dwelling on this for the 
existing DNS, IPv4, and IPv6 address spaces, but the IETF's role is fundamental 
to the existence of these registries themselves, and not "in addition to, and/or 
enabled by" NTIA-DoC, ICANN, or any other party.

/John

Disclaimer: My view alone.