It seems to me this has some reasonable outcome.

Common word usage is constrained to reflect real-world constraints on usage in
trade names and other 'assets' owners may state direct their interests in
asserting the name. Whilst I took a very reductionist view that even this
was going to be a problem, it seems that for now, generics are not acceptable,
and when they are, I hope it will be after a reasoned debate on the 
implications.

This also says nothing about the trading in names, which I still believe 
requires to be explicitly addressed and not as a side-effect of some other
process relating to legitemate ownership or appropriateness in assigning
rights from a commons. Again, I think that can come, but it needs appropriate
consideration first.

I suspect that stuff like star-trek.com.au where the word star is in common
usage, and the word trek is in common usage would fall for other reasons
relating to copyright and not the application of a dictionary-test rule.

If I understand the prose :-) of the financial aspect, you have effectively
extended the lifetime of all 'pre existing' registrations until 1997 but
its not clear if this means a business who acts as a clearing house for a large
number of DNS exchanges can effectively spread financial load over a year or
will still have to see some flagfall date at which all such registrants fall
due. Did I miss some text which clarifies? Simons complaints seemed to me to
have much legitemacy in stating that making all names fall due on day <x> was
a deeply flawed model, and does little for your or anybody elses cashflow and
business/scheduling.

I also don't understand how the 'competing DNA must reciprocate' deal works
since the only way shared management of a DNS space can work is if the global
framework sees all names under the given space, and that implies either that
you bilaterally exchange data at checkpoints, or both submit state into some
meta-engine which in turn publishes same to the world. 

Ie the zone files are going to be shared or its not going to work.

No?

-George
--
George Michaelson         |  connect.com.au pty/ltd
Email: ggm&#167;connect.com.au |  c/o AAPT,
Phone: +61 7 3834 9976    |  level 8, the Riverside Centre,
  Fax: +61 7 3834 9908    |  123 Eagle St, Brisbane QLD 4000