Re: Save .ORG campaign

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

I would not support Debian signing this  but you are welcome to try and
develop a consensus on -project.

My concerns are twofold:

1) Domain governance is not part of Debian's mission.
Taking positions in that area dilutes our mission and might tend to
drive valuable contributors away.

2) As an example, i actually think this is probably a reasonable deal
for ISOC and that a healthy ISOC and Internet standards process may
(although I'll admit it's less clear than it would have been 10 years
ago) benefit Debian more than any likely harm to .org.

PIR was founded in 2002 to find a way to fund internet standards.
Basically, there were politics and ICANN was convinced to give .org to a
company taht would effectively use the money to fund the IETF and other
Internet policy efforts (ISOC).  This was the best solution we had at
the time (I was involved in IETF but not yet a leader in the
organization) back then.
But it was always kind of alarming, because if the domain name business
ever decreased in value, suddenly we would not able to fund ongoing
standards development for the Internet.


What ISOC has done here is find a way to get out of the domain
business--something they were never really great at--and set up an
endowment like a university or something.
That seems much more stable and is probably good for the Internet.

The IETF and to a lesser extent ISOC face a number of challenges these
days, but I think they still serve an important purpose.

There were also some tax concerns about ISOC owning PIR that were
somewhat of an ongoing headache for ISOC board members over the years.

I think that's enough to demonstrate why it's a complex issue and why
someone like me who had been involved in the Internet standards process
for much of their life might be kind of upset if Debian started taking a
position.  That's a real risk you run every time you take a position:
some of your contributors might feel pushed away.

Now, I'm at one side of the spectrum on this issue.
You might get more support on -project.

--Sam