[NA-Discuss] The TLD-less NYC
Eric Brunner-Williams
ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net
Sun Apr 3 14:41:23 UTC 2011
On 4/3/11 8:53 AM, Jean Armour Polly wrote:
> But if someone wants to enter that marketplace, and has
> a technical plan that won't screw up everyone else, why not?
When Jon selected iso3166 as the means to allocate portions of the
task then anticipated to fail to scale as the price for network
adapters dropped, the access limitations to iso3166 code points were
known.
On one occasion that limit has been worked around, allowing a
delegation that presented no immediate scale issue, the delegation for
the attached-device poor Palestine.
On one other occasion that limit has also been worked around, allowing
a delegation that presented an immediate scale issue, the delegation
for the attached-device rich European Union.
What I am pointing out here in this note is that the "if someone"
construct appears to assume an equity of condition, a blank slate, a
virgin wilderness, to employ a familiar meme, awaiting settlement.
However, we know that nearly all of the iso3166 entries did not then,
and do not now, meaningfully contribute to a solution to a scaling
problem caused by the decreased cost of network adapters. The labor
intensive "by-Jon's-hand" editing of the top-level domains of that
period has been replaced by orders of magnitude less labor intensive
tools for the top-level domains of the present, and on the order of
100 of the 322 in fact are still managed by means Jon would find
familiar, and tedious, improved only by the infrequency of having to
add names to those zones.
Further, we know that many social identities held in common by
demographics larger than the populations of the bottom third of the
countries and territories allocated iso3166 code points do not have,
and cannot ever have, iso3166 code points allocated for their use
under the allocation rule of the iso3166 Maintenance Agency.
The indigenous populations of the Americas are utterly excluded.
Kurds, as regional minorities, or as a transnational peoples, are as
well. Basques, as an autonomous government within a nation state are
as well. Migratory peoples, expatriated populations, and displaced
populations are as well.
Additionally, the scripts selected under the ccTLD IDN FastTrack of
necessity exclude adaptations of Latin script by non-Latin language
communities, and of an additional necessity select only one script
where two or more scripts are used by governments allocated iso3166
code points, and of an additional necessity exclude all scripts not
used by a government, and of further necessity, restrict the
management of top-level domains in non-Latin scripts to governments
allocated iso3166 code points.
Arabic script, as a transnational script shared by 22 iso3166
allocated code point governments, is utterly excluded, except as a
second form of one or more of the 22 existing ccTLDs, with their
respective restrictions. The same fact situation exists for Han
script, used widely in East Asia, and Cyrillic script, used widely in
Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
I suggest that a queue exists, and serving that queue is in the public
interest.
Jon and I discussed 3166 at the time of its adoption. I expect that
had we both set aside our respective political concerns, his with Ira
Magaziner and mine with the rights of Tribal Governments in at the end
of the Termination Period, we could have agreed that the better
choice, the hot spot on the Internet growth map, was cities, not
nation states, as that is where the machines were, and are.
Eric
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