The most difficult obstacle to overcome in forming a new entity to run the domain name system still appears to be the names council, which is the part of the new entity that will decide such things as choosing new top-level domains and allocating them to registries. Up until the meeting in Singapore last week (see separate story), there had been a clear divide between factions about the names council’s make-up. The Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA), which is the organization that will form the basis of the new entity, says in its draft proposals that the council should comprise representatives from the generic and country-code registries, plus other entities to be determined by the board of the entity. Last week a group of country-code registries – all of which were appointed by IANA’s director Jon Postel – formed themselves into the grandly-titled World Wide Alliance of TLD Registries (wwTLD), which failed to persuade the company behind the current generic TLD registry, Network Solutions Inc, to join and thus had little credibility. On the other side of the divide, another, much looser grouping of alternative root server network operators, including what remains of the AlterNic, and some regional counterparts, were of the opinion that the names council must be a decentralized body, including the registrars, registries, organized interest groups and others. Three figures in the second camp – Einar Stefferud, Richard Sexton and Adam Todd met late at night last week in Singapore and drew up a plan for the names council structure. They offered it up as a suggestion in the open plenary on the names council of the first day of debate at the meeting, which came under the banner of the International Forum on the White Paper (IFWP) series. It was shouted down, according to Sexton, who claimed that until then the plenary was making no progress. It was described by some at the meeting as a monster, and too big. After some discussion a vote was taken on whether to proceed with that particular debate and almost everyone voted to move on. However, as NSI said, that was also due in part to confusion on the part of some of those present that didn’t understand the issue. Then, apparently, Don Telage, senior VP of NSI and hitherto seemingly no friend of the alternative root server coalitions, stood up & told the plenary that he thought it might work and should be pursued further. Telage is on vacation and not available to confirm that, but another NSI representative present told us that Telage thought it an intriguing proposal not seen before, but that his remarks should not be viewed as a ringing endorsement. Anyway, it was enough for Sexton and friends to meet with the wwTLD’s Bernard Turcotte later that day. They were joined soon after by NSI’s VP customer programs Chuck Gomes; and Randy Bush who serves on the IANA transition advisory group (ITAG) set up by Postel earlier this year. After some initial disagreements, all sides discussed Sexton/Stefferud’s model, which has five interest councils, representing the root service providers; TLD registries; registrars; DNS zone administrators; organized interest groups and trademark interests, although the last of those is only tentative. Turcotte redrew the structure, but, according to Sexton, maintained the decentralized structure. He says it is the first compromise between the maverick root service providers and the IANA-sponsored ccTLD registries (whose de facto representative at the meeting was Bush, who agreed to the compromise) and thus should be a significant moment of progress as we head towards the September 30 deadline. Time will tell.
