Re: E-mail survey. Just 2 questions.

[John Demco <[e-mail]>]

Claudio,

I very much like the idea of making 1327 information available via the
DNS.  However, I wonder about the prospect of reserving a second-level
subdomain under each country domain.  I haven't been following the
discussion closely, and I hope my comments--mainly in my role as CA
domain registrar--are relevant.

Reserving a subdomain such as X400.<country-code> may not fit into the
plans each country has for its portion of the namespace.  For example,
in Canada the policy is that second-level domains under .CA are
geopolitical and organizational; that is, second-level domain names
are for provinces, territories, and national organizations.  Of course
policies can be changed, but the CA domain committee has had long
discussions on why we think this is suitable for the long-term
structuring of the namespace.  If we were required to create a
subdomain such as X400.CA in order to distribute mapping information,
it would open the way for other special-interest groups to make claims
on second-level domain names too, and it suggests that we don't
actually have authority for the namespace.  At the very least we
would want to consider a more general structure, such as reserving a
single second-level domain for standards-related information.

If you haven't done so already, you might want to poll other country
domain registrars on this matter.

My immediate preference would be to have the 1327 information rooted at a
single point inside in the DNS tree.  For example, the GO-MHS community could
acquire a second-level domain, say GO-MHS.INT.  It would agree to delegate
each country-specific subdomain (i.e. <country-code>.GO-MHS.INT) to whomever
controls the primary nameserver for the country domain, with the results that:
- the country domains are untouched, and
- there would be no (additional) dispute over who has authority
  for the new <country-code>.GO-MHS.INT subdomains.
Perhaps there is a more suitable attachment point than GO-MHS.INT.
That would be fine with me.

Regards,
--John