[governance] Proposed statement on .ORG sale

[John Levine]

In article <CAJjTEvHZDQtgB9A6bAdWbP-C2dDx7p=hcVFwLB2oA4kFVb80Mw at mail.gmail.com> you write:
>Dear John,
>...have you used it yourselves ?
>
>https://archive.icann.org/en/tlds/org/criteria.htm

Informally, sort of.

>...for sure, these criteria are interesting ; but let me know if there is a
>specific criterion which contains, explicitely, the key words : **By and
>For** ?

Since it's only a page long, if you don't mind, I'll let you read it
yourself.  Keep in mind that those were the criteria that ICANN
actually used to evaluate the applications, while the other appears to
be some sort of press release.

I have no idea where the assertion in the other document that .org was
"by and for" non-profits came from.  As everyone here certainly knows,
.org has always been open non-profits and everyone else, and
non-profits have never been a majority of the registrants.  RFC 920,
which defined the first set of TLDs didn't even mention non-profits,
and the later RFC 1591 mentioned non-profits only as an example of
entities that "may fit here."  Non-profits are very welcome, but no
more than anyone else.

Until 2002 .com, .net, and .org were run together.  Originally it was
by SRI as a government contractor, then by Network Solutions, later
Verisign, also as a government contractor, then in 1998 still by
Verisign, with a government "cooperative agreement", a contract that
doesn't pay anything.  Before ISOC, .org had *always* been run exactly
the same way as .com and .net and everyone thought that was normal.

I see that phrase but it looks like even then people misunderstood
what .org is, so I see no basis for it.

R's,
John