[governance] RE: Human rights and new gTLDs

[Thomas Narten]

Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> writes:

> There is no need for a single DNS root.  For years already there have 
> been many such roots, most ill run and laughable, but some are 
> professionally managed by people who really know what they are
> doing.

It seems to be you are intentionally confusing two distinct
issues. Global uniqueness of the namespace (i.e., everyone sees the
same namespace, no matter where they are) vs. the implementation
technology that is used to provide the actual mapping of names to
addresses (or whatever). The DNS system is the latter. Sure, I can
imagine alternate implementations that don't have the same "root"
structure at the top level, but that doesn't change the need for
having a way of authoritatively deciding who (when there are
conflicts) gets to own the mapping for a given name (e.g., all the
names rooted within a given TLD).

It is the namespace that needs global uniqueness, and it is _there_
that the issue comes up there needing to be a "root", that effectively
"decides" which of possible conficting possibilities (read: different,
inconsistent versions of the same TLD) is the one that _all_ users
see. Without some arbitration, you get inconsistency, which IMO, is a
bad thing.

You then go on and describe issues with the DNS system that make it a
less than perfect system, and use that to justify the lack of a need
for a root at all. That's nonsense.

> Users can pick and chose which root system to which they will
>  subscribe.

This is the crux of the problem with multiple roots (or more
generally, a fractured namespace). The vast majority of users will not
want to have to select/configure which name space they are using. They
want to use the same one _everyone_ else uses, so that any names they
use (or share with another user) work the same everywhere.
  
> If they don't like the offerings of root A, they can move to root B, 
> just as today if they don't find their favorite boutique brand of soup 
> at supermarket A they can go to supermarket B.

Here's a more apt analogy:

       Who needs to have one system of telephone numbers? Why not let
       users decide which of (competing) phone number systems they
       will use?

Thomas
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