RE: [idn] final rev of charter

["Eugene M. Kim" <ab@astralblue.com>]

I totally agree with this view.  Actually, I think we (IDN) are in a far
better (i.e. fortunate) situation in that there are many different
proposals about to come out and be discussed on the equal ground; i.e.
none is challenging the pre-established standard.

IMHO, the most important thing is to have a well-ground (as much as
possible) standard, although it means some degree of delay.  It is (to
some degree) true that the current Internet is driven by the consumer's
demand, but it should not prevent the smallest bit of initial discussion
on standard proposals, because once a proposal has been selected as a
standard, it becomes much harder to beat it out regardless how poisonous
it would turn out to be (as we saw in other fields of Internet).

One may argue that we can continuously evolve the standard, but it
simply wouldn't happen.  Companies with pre-existing implementation
certainly don't want to see the standard changing too often, and if it
does they will simply derive their own interpretation of, or `extension'
to the standard on their own.  And this kind of individual change can
propagate through other implementors as well, if its originator has
enough influences on them.  Result: a total disaster, because a standard
is meaningful only if the major portion of the implementors (in terms of
how many people will use their implementation) adhere to it.

I don't want to see the same mistake repeated, and am sure others will
share the same thought as well.

Regards,
Eugene Kim

On Fri, 16 Jun 2000, Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:

| At 8:45 AM -0700 6/15/00, Russ Rolfe wrote:
| >If we lived in a perfect world, I would agree with your statement, 
| >but we have to deal with the real world out there.  When the 
| >internet was more an academic property, we could take our time and 
| >look at all the possibilities, but the Internet is now driven by 
| >business.
| 
| This kind of cynicism may be prevalent, but it is certainly not 
| shared by everyone here. Many of us are working hard on 
| internationalizing domain names to help *people*, not businesses. The 
| greatest benefit of a company, a non-profit organization, or a 
| government being able to put its actual name in its domain name is to 
| the Internet users who are more likely to get the online resources 
| they want. This is not about vanity or profits: it is about usability.
| 
| >People and businesses are asking for this now.  There is a need to 
| >be filled now.  This is an environment where one person's hesitation 
| >is another's opportunity.  IMHO, if we are not more aggressive in 
| >coming up with a standard, someone else will implement something 
| >that will become the defacto standard, or many implementations will 
| >arise and then we will need to try to make them all work with each 
| >other.
| 
| This happens all the time. Sometimes it is helpful, but more often it 
| is harmful to end users. Fortunately, many of the companies who are 
| participating in this joint effort are showing corporate restraint by 
| not deploying the first thing that pops into their head. It would be 
| very bad if a company destroys the usability of the primary naming 
| mechanism on the Internet just for a quick profit.
| 
| >This does not mean that we should jump into something with looking 
| >at all the ramifications, but that we should work for a middle 
| >ground that will give as a workable solution as aggressively as 
| >possible.
| 
| So far, all of the solutions that have been proposed (including the 
| one from your company) have been shown to have flaws, some of them 
| disastrous. At this point, there are many proposals on the table, and 
| more are about to come out because of the change in the charter. We 
| need a balance of proposal writers and proposal checkers, and a 
| healthy and active discussion between the two groups. This doesn't 
| have to be slow, but rushing it will almost certainly cause problems 
| for end users (and businesses) that could be prevented by being 
| thorough.
| 
| --Paul Hoffman, Director
| --Internet Mail Consortium
| 

-- 
Eugene M. Kim <ab@astralblue.com>

"Is your music unpopular?  Make it popular; make music
which people like, or make people who like your music."