I'd like to raise some issues with the process that has led to the
draft proposals for a new second level domain, "pr.au", published on
the www.adna.asn.au web site.

This is (apparently) the outcome of two public meetings about Trademarks 
and the DNS held in November'97 in Sydney and Melbourne, and decisions 
from the January ADNA board meeting.

You would expect that, with the meetings convened by the Registrar of
Trade Marks, organised with the Australian Industrial Property
Organisation (AIPO), and attended by approximately 140 interested
parties in total, that this might constitute a "community" whose
opinions were to be listened to.

The ADNA report of the meetings shows that the vast majority voted for
the com.au elegibility policy to be opened up to allow trademarks, and 
that of the small number of votes for alternatives -- new second-level 
domains tm.au or pr.au -- tm.au was the preferred option.

(see http://www.adna.asn.au/Documents/TrademarksAndDomains.html)

Fast forward to 28 January 1998, the ADNA board meeting attended by
Luke Carruthers, Peter Gerrand, Mark Hughes, Kevin Dinn, and Stephen 
Baxter (by phone).

Peter Gerrand moved:
   1. that ADNA endorse the eligibility criteria for com.au being
        extended to include existing Australian trade marks; and
   2. that ADNA endorse the creation of a new 2LD tm.au, 

Both motions LAPSED because of a lack of seconder.

*** Why did they lapse?  Why did ADNA not carry out the expressed
    preferences of the community they had consulted? ***

PG then proposed: 
   3. that ADNA endorse the creation of a new 2LD pr.au, designed to 
      support visibility of Australian products and services on the Web.

This motion was carried.

*** Why? ***

What support did it have from the trademark community?  What rationale
did ADNA have to do this, when they HAD a strong mandate to implement at 
least one of the other two proposals that they did not carry?

The introduction of pr.au was then folded neatly into the timetable to
create a shared registry system to allow competition in the commercial 2LDs.

This task is going to be difficult enough anyway, why add to it something
that the community specifically said it didn't particularly need or want?  
Who DOES need pr.au?  Why didn't they vote for it if they needed it?  

Introduction of shared-registry software is only a minor part of the
problem: what about getting the commercial 2LDs together to agree to
compete?  That hasn't even been worked on yet, here's the latter part
of the "Timetable for Introduction of pr.au and Multiple Commercial
Registrars":

   * 30 April ADNA Board Meeting; considers Tender Panel recommendations, 
     and decides (1) tender for SRS (2) Registrar Licence Conditions and 
     (3) new registrars for commercial domains including pr.au.
 
   * 8 May Contracts to be signed with SRS tenderer and new Registrars
 
   * 1 June pr.au operations commence (potentially with initially single DNA)

   * 6 July (nominally) Receive SRS software, implemented and tested by 
     vendor. Commence testing with existing DNAs.
 
   * 20 July Distribute and make operational SRS software with all Registrars 
     for further testing.
 
   * 27 Jul Competition commences in all commercial domains
 
The world Internet community has taken two years to even come close to
figuring out the problems involved in combining trademarks and DNS, yet
ADNA want to push pr.au through in a few weeks!

The REAL problem is getting the commercial registrars to agree to open
up their business to competition.  (The software to do this is just the
first step.)  Combining this with setting up a 2LD that nobody asked for
will just delay real solutions.

Kate Lance