[governance] Another view on TLDs

[Karl Auerbach]

Some discussion has passed that has assumed that internet governance 
ought to encompass the semantic examination of character sequences that 
form DNS top level domains and of the purposes of the advocates of that 
sequence.

Why?

Except for IDN encoding and certain conventions (e.g. hyphens may not be 
leading characters), such examinations contribute nothing to the 
technical stability of the internet (as measured by the efficient, 
rapid, and accurate transformation of DNS query packets into DNS 
response packets without prejudice for or against any query source or 
query target.)

Such examination merely burdens the *internet* governance oversight of 
TLDs with broad cultural, economic, and social components.  And we have 
seen how those components combine to create a kind of thick concrete 
that quickly turns to stone around bodies exercising such oversight.

So, again I raise the concern that there is a great tendency to bite off 
more than we can chew - that *internet* governance should constrain 
itself to matters of a technical nature, at least until there are a few 
success stories under our belts.

By way of analogy - the systems that oversee the safety of aircraft and 
seacraft tend to confine themselves to matters that pertain to the air 
or sea worthiness of the craft - that oversight barely goes to the color 
scheme of the interior (e.g. safety requires adequate lighting) and 
rarely goes to the business plans of the owners.

Internet governance should follow that pattern - it should strictly 
confine itself to the job that needs to be done.

		--karl--

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