>"We need more SLDs - because we need more SLDs?"
> 
>   What problem do you think you might possibly be addressing Simon?
>   And is this a solution?
>

The problem I was thinking of is the practical monopoly in the com.au
namespace which was sold to the affected community on the basis of
competitive DNA's operating in that space Real Soon Now. I'm open to any
practical approach that achieves that in a finite timeframe, personally.

>
>"We need to manage competition"
>
>   Huh? Is this the New Age form of "managed" competition?
>   
>

Sorry, I've been reading the papers too much lately. Seen any articles on
the deregulation of the comms market lately? I must have Professor Fels'
comments too close to heart. Let's try again:

Perhaps I should have said "we need to _permit_ competition" -and the only
real reason being that it is one was to avoiding Melbourne IT being the
only game in town without recourse. ALternatively, we could just let them
be the only game in town and get on with something else, and just wait for
Robert to give up on delegating DN's, declare com.au "closed" for future
business and force us all to register in .COM in the first. This is not
entirely facetious.

>  What do you mean by competition, and how do you expect to achieve it?
>
>As a first cut there are gaping holes as far as I can see Simon.
>

Absolutely. Alas, I wasn't proposing a complete solution either - just
trying to cut through some of the crap. Please, tell me what _will_ work to
address the fundamental issues (in my understanding) which are:

	-  that Robert Elz doesn't want to run com.au any more. 

	-  that people turning up to the ADNA meetings seem fundamentally
	interested in there being alternatives to com.au as a method of
	letting market forces level any potential for (negative) monopolistic
	practices [noting that with the excepting of the stupidity with respect
	to existing names, in my view Melbourne IT have been pretty even
	handed in practice]

If that isn't the fundamental issue set, what is? (no sarcasm, I'm serious
- we'll never converge on any form of solution without a consistent
understanding of the problem space - if any!)

>
>I'm sorry, but the deja vue with the IAHC work is overwhelming, and
>my point is that a little better effort in understanding the problem domain
>rather than pontificating bandaids will go a long way forward.
>

And as you'll be aware, various entities who may or may not be infuential,
up to and including the US government are publically developing cold feet
over the IAHC proposals. Now I personally think they're great - I really do
- and perhaps this just goes to show that it's nearly impossible to achieve
complete consensus on anything :)

I really don't know what the way forward is right now. I am fully happy to
support the IAHC model, Geoff,  because it seems tremendously even-handed,
and that's a great place to start. What do *you* think is the right
approach? It sounds like you'd advocate simply laying the IAHC structure
into place underneath the .AU namespace. If that's the concept, I'm cool
with that - gotta be better than endless confusion.

Simon
---
Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd
31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
Email: simon§internode.com.au  Web: http://www.on.net
Phone: +61-8-8223-2999          Fax: +61-8-8223-1777