Mike Roberts of Educause announces his new IANA position in IFWPsteering committee

Jim Fleming

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Aug 29, 1998, 3:00:00 AM8/29/98

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-----Original Message-----
From: Gordon Cook <co...@cookreport.com>
To: com-...@psi.com <com-...@psi.com>; telec...@relay.doit.wisc.edu
<telec...@relay.doit.wisc.edu>; li...@inet-access.net
<li...@inet-access.net>; CYBERTE...@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
<CYBERTE...@LISTSERV.AOL.COM>; DOMAIN...@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET
<DOMAIN...@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET>; domain...@open-rsc.org
<domain...@open-rsc.org>
Date: Saturday, August 29, 1998 4:29 PM
Subject: Mike Roberts of Educause announces his new IANA position in
IFWPsteering committee

>Cook: Dave Farber has posted this to his Interesting Persons mail list, a

Gordon,

You might be trying to chase a story
that is not there. I wish you had been
in Chicago last week to cover the
events. In my opinion, everything is
falling into place. People active in the
Registry Industry still have a lot of
work to do before 10/1/98 when your
friends at the NSF are finally removed
from the picture.

If any real news pops up, I am sure
that people will keep you posted.

Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation - http://www.unir.com

Robert Raisch

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Aug 29, 1998, 3:00:00 AM8/29/98

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From: Jim Fleming

> People active in the
> Registry Industry still have a lot of
> work to do before 10/1/98 when your
> friends at the NSF are finally removed
> from the picture.

Does anyone really believe NSI will give up anything without a fight?

When they went public I predicted someone would end up in prison for
securities fraud when USGov finally came calling to extract the public's
property from NSI.

Anyone want to take that bet?

--
Rob Raisch, Online Technology Evangelist <http://www.raisch.com/>

How close is the kinship between a man and the whole human race,
for it is a community, not of a little blood or seed, but of
intelligence. --Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book XII)

Jim Fleming

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Aug 29, 1998, 3:00:00 AM8/29/98

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-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Raisch <rai...@internautics.com>
To: JimFl...@unety.net <JimFl...@unety.net>; Multiple recipients of list
<com-...@lists.psi.com>
Date: Saturday, August 29, 1998 5:17 PM
Subject: RE: Mike Roberts of Educause announces his new IANA position in
IFWPsteering committee

>From: Jim Fleming
>> People active in the
>> Registry Industry still have a lot of
>> work to do before 10/1/98 when your
>> friends at the NSF are finally removed
>> from the picture.
>
>Does anyone really believe NSI will give up anything without a fight?
>

What do you expect NSI to give up ?

They have stated on numerous occasions
that they intend to continue supporting the
.COM SLD owners.

They currently control the "A" legacy Root
Name Server which is where new TLDs
should be added on 10/1/98 to allow the
other Root Servers to pull from there. It is
not clear to me that NSI cares that much
about that Root Name Server as a root,
they care more about it because it is also
a .COM server. That is where they make
money.

As more Root Name Server Clusters (RSCs)
are deployed, the world depends less and
less on the "A" Root Server as a root. It still
depends on it as a .COM server as well as
some of the other TLDs, including .ARPA
which should have been moved long ago.

Again, what do you expect NSI to give up ?
..the name InterNIC.NET ?

Tim Salo

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Aug 29, 1998, 3:00:00 AM8/29/98

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> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 18:19:23 -0400
> From: "Robert Raisch" <rai...@internautics.com>

> Subject: RE: Mike Roberts of Educause announces his new IANA position in IFWPsteering committee

> [...]

> Does anyone really believe NSI will give up anything without a fight?
>

> When they went public I predicted someone would end up in prison for
> securities fraud when USGov finally came calling to extract the public's
> property from NSI.

To what public property do you refer?

Is it really "public property" (what ever the heck "public property" is)?
Please reference appropriate FARs and contracts or cooperative agreements.

-tjs

Russell Nelson

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Aug 29, 1998, 3:00:00 AM8/29/98

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Tim Salo writes:
> Is it really "public property" (what ever the heck "public property" is)?
> Please reference appropriate FARs and contracts or cooperative agreements.

Haven't we hashed this out completely with West Publishing three or
four years ago? At least West Publishing numbered the public-domain
pages. What value has NSI added? How can you claim to own something
which is in the public domain, and to which you have added no value?
Sure, they're getting paid to keep them on a computer and make them
available to everyone, but that's just a service they're getting paid
for. I pay somebody to come in and clean my house, they don't get to
camp out in my back yard afterwards.

Jim Fleming

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Aug 30, 1998, 3:00:00 AM8/30/98

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-----Original Message-----
From: Russell Nelson <nel...@crynwr.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <com-...@lists.psi.com>
Date: Saturday, August 29, 1998 9:43 PM
Subject: RE: Mike Roberts of Educause announces his new IANA position in
IFWPsteering committee

>Tim Salo writes:
> > Is it really "public property" (what ever the heck "public property"
is)?
> > Please reference appropriate FARs and contracts or cooperative
agreements.
>
>Haven't we hashed this out completely with West Publishing three or
>four years ago? At least West Publishing numbered the public-domain
>pages. What value has NSI added? How can you claim to own something
>which is in the public domain, and to which you have added no value?
>Sure, they're getting paid to keep them on a computer and make them
>available to everyone, but that's just a service they're getting paid
>for. I pay somebody to come in and clean my house, they don't get to
>camp out in my back yard afterwards.
>

With NSI it might be a little different. One might want
to start with the population of <SLD>.COM customers.
Some of those customers have renewed their names
during the past year. During that time, the NSF quietly
removed their 30% tax, NSI lowered the fees. This
placed 100% of the money with NSI and clearly some
of that money is for future service beyond the NSF
cooperative agreement. Since customers have signed
up for that service they have essentially voted for NSI
to continue operating. They voted with dollars.

When the NSF officially bows out, NSI will be left with
many customers fully paid and funding to keep them
going for many months. Other customers will no doubt
be given the opportunity to subscribe with NSI. As they
do that they will be voting for NSI.

In my opinion, it will be critical that NSI help to provide
many alternative TLDs for customers to consider. If they
do not, then .COM customers will be locked in and it
will be hard to measure how many .COM customers
would renew given other choices. At the present time,
the National Science Foundation has blocked NSI from
adding new names. That will soon go away. There will
no longer be any excuse for why new TLDs are not
being added to the legacy Root Name Servers.

Tim Salo

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Aug 30, 1998, 3:00:00 AM8/30/98

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> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 22:39:54 -0400
> From: Russell Nelson <nel...@crynwr.com>

> Subject: RE: Mike Roberts of Educause announces his new IANA position in IFWPsteering committee
>
> Tim Salo writes:
> > Is it really "public property" (what ever the heck "public property" is)?
> > Please reference appropriate FARs and contracts or cooperative agreements.
>
> Haven't we hashed this out completely with West Publishing three or
> four years ago? At least West Publishing numbered the public-domain
> pages. What value has NSI added? How can you claim to own something
> which is in the public domain, and to which you have added no value?
> Sure, they're getting paid to keep them on a computer and make them
> available to everyone, but that's just a service they're getting paid
> for. I pay somebody to come in and clean my house, they don't get to
> camp out in my back yard afterwards.

I don't believe West Publishing is relevant. West Publishing claimed
copyright, if I recall, on their page numbers and even the text, I think.

I don't know that NSI is claiming copyright, (NSI will have to speak for
themselves).

Alternatively, suppose NSI claims that whatever various people claim is
"public property" is actually an NSI trade secret. Then what? You can
legally create your own versions of what NSI claims is their trade secret.
However, you haven't provided much reason that NSI must provide you with
what they might claim is trade secret information.

So, I think the question I posed above remains, West Publishing and
your messy house notwithstanding.

What information is "public"? Why is it public? To whom must NSI
give it? Can that party (e.g., the Government) provide it to someone
else?

-tjs