At 18:27 1/09/97 +0900, Simon Hackett wrote:
>
>The critical point here was that the existing policy operated by Melbourne
>IT in com.au *is* ambiguous, and current efforts reported (I think) to
>generate software to unambiguously determine if a name is "ok" were
>underway by Melbourne IT, but there was no intention by them to provide
>that software to any other party at $0 
>
>Perhaps Peter Gerrand can clarify this situation for us - the key point
>being that in practice, competition in com.au is impossible without a
>policy which is easy to make determinations against by any of the multiple
>operators in that domain - without needing to pay someone else for software
>to make a yes/no decision. That would seem, to me, to admit a couple of
>potential solutions:
>
>	- Melbourne IT turns that software, if developed, over to all com.au
>registries to (a) preserve the currently integrity of the policy for new
>registrations (b) ensure consistency at no cost (in the name of assisting
>ADNA with making their activities workable) or:
>	- the policy is changed/relaxed in a manner which does not require
>extensive software or head scratching to determine whether a name is
>acceptable so that significant magic software developments are not needed
>to operate this domain. If that reduces (slightl) the "market brandability"
>of names in com.au, so be it (in my view) - practical competition requires
>practical measures.
>

Simon
I'll need to take that question on notice, and undertake to provide a
response as input to the next ADNA Board meeting.
I have a colleague attending the gTLD PAB meeting in the US this week, and
I'd like to be guided by the solutions emerging for the best architecture
to support gTLD registrars, as well as our own feasibility study.

Regards
PG