> 1. History  (much from Geoff Huston 9-Dec-1996)
>
>   In 1988 the ISO 3166 two letter code for Australia, ".au" was delegated by
>   IANA to Robert Elz, of the Computer Science Department, University of
>   Melbourne. At the time Robert managed the Internet electronic mail gateway
>   between the Australian Internet email community and the larger
>   international Internet email systems then in use.

I seem to remember doing more than sending mail in those days, but if that's what
kre reckons he did then that's what he did...

I don't suppose a mention of the death of ACSNet is warranted here?
Ie once upon a time we had this cool domain that only a few diehards
insist on using today... [not wishing to restart an old brawl here]

>   In response to the overwhelming work load and name disputes, on
>   1 November 1996 Robert Elz re-delegated the ".com.au" domain name to
>   Melbourne IT, who have undertaken this function on a fee for service
>   basis. This was undertaken after a 4 month long process of industry
>   consultation, under the auspices of a DNS Summit, hosted by the Internet
>   Service Providers' Industry Association, INTIAA. [which was a pity,
>   because most "stake holders" were not members -- Antony]

I don't have a problem with saying why the previous attempts at"straightening
things out" didn't work, however if you make this sort of
claim you have to substantiate it with a bit more than this. It is true
that INTIAA doesn't (nor ever did) cover all of the stake holders - you
won't find any genuine denizen of *.edu.au there.


> 2. ADNA, Kre, IIA - lots of acronyms
>

Maybe we should define a few more of the myriad of relevant acronymshere - even the
easy ones like nTLDs etc.... isn't there a relevant RFC?
[I will try to but all help gratefully appreciated here...]

> 3. .AU or .COM.AU
>
>   The DNS discussion should cover all of .AU and not just .COM.AU. Whilst
>   .COM.AU is the largest Domain area, it is not all of it, and any DNS governing
>   body will have to cover all of .AU
>
>   Currently there are 8 sub-delegations of .AU -
>         Melbourne IT    - com.au
>         Geoff Huston    - gov.au edu.au info.au
>         Hugh Irvine     - net.au (managed by Connect.com.au)
>         Michael Malone  - asn.au
>         Robert Elz      - org.au id.au(??)

Personally I have never really grokked what "*.asn.au" was truly for, and I
remember when it first came about!

I think it would be helpful, at least to dispense with the topic quickly, to
state what the 2LDs are about.


>   Ultimately, Robert Elz has the final say on what happens, however I
>   believe he will not assign .AU to a body that does not have the full
>   support of these sub-delegates (and rightly so).
>

This should not be in the first person. kre should put out a public stmtof what he
is prepared or not prepared to do.


> 4. What needs doing?  (from Kate Lance 25-Jun-1998)
>
> The areas of concern that NOIE think we have to sort out before we're
> going to get community/industry consensus on .AU governance are:

Aside from what NOIE think needs doing - what other things need doing?
Surely there are technical criteria that need to be established to
allow domain administration?


> 5. The DNS mailing list
>
> The NEW DNS mailing list is being hosted by the Western Australia Internet
> Association. The list is open to anyone who wishes to join, however the
> content is considered to be a working forum. Any material from the list may
> not be used outside of the list without the expression permission of the
> content writer.

Could we possibly have the follwing instead:
"may not be reprinted or quoted in any form, outside of this list without
the *express* permission of the original author." Without the "*"s of
course. Unless the consensus is we need to stress it! :)

I think this needs a statement of acceptable participation, rather than the
wholesale banning of certain individuals (it just avoids grief later on -
this is a seasoned listowner talking!). Ie a stmt of acceptable usage...



Cheers

Narelle

--
Narelle Clark                                   ph: +612 9342 6503
Technical Specialist                           fax: +612 9342 7766
Optus Communications                         narellec§optus.com.au
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