[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period has been replaced by orders of magnitude less labor intensive 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



More information about the NA-Discuss mailing list