From: eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew)
Subject: Re: can.domain
Organization: XeniTec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
Distribution: can
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1993 06:45:36 GMT

In article <C08H06.6xB@uunet.ca> smd@uunet.ca (Sean Doran) writes:
>Can.domain is perhaps a useful vehicle for public bickering.  A
>semipublic/semiprivate mailing list might be useful for some more
>detailed (and less heated) discussions about policy.  However, neither
>one nor the other should "vote", and neither one nor the other should
>be considered a policy-making body.

I'm not sure where this concept that anyone votes on things in
the CA domain committee comes from.  Of the hundreds of issues
discussed in committee since I've been there, there's not been
a single "vote" on anything.  Either one says something that
makes sense and can be substantiated, hence resulting in broad
agreement and adoption by the Registrar, or one is countered.

>Policy should be made by the
>person who controls the nameservers for the top-level-domain. 

As it is.  He just likes to ensure that he has all available
facts before determining policy.

>Given the secretiveness
>of the process and of the membership of the committee and
>mailing-list, it is hardly surprising that people are frustrated.

It's never been "secretive", although we've found out that some people
may feel that way.  The steps being taken to ensure that no one
perceives secrecy where there really isn't any, are and should
continue to become more apparent.

>I have yet to understand why the historical records of the
>deliberations of the CA-DOM committee haven't been made public.  Could
>it be that some of the members of the committee might be a little
>embarassed by some of their comments in the past?  Or is such openness
>something they would welcome?

Obviously I can't attribute private correspondence without specific
permission from the various authors, but from the discussion I've
seen on the topic no one has yet stated that "secrecy" is desireable.

I won't speak for others, but I for one have said in committee, as
well as to a number of correspondents, that anything I have or might
in future state in committee is perfectly allowable for publication.

I'm hopeful that we'll have a policy consensus on this issue very soon.

>Perhaps we could start off with an explanation (for the benefit of
>people who don't know) of how the CA-DOM committee makes decisions,

I hope to have adequately covered that in brief in an earlier posting
tonight.

>the draft copy of the new CA-DOM rules,

These will be posted just as soon as the new draft is compiled.
It's been in progress for a couple of weeks now, so I hope we're
coming to the end of the process.

If anyone is in a major panic, I can post the guidelines as they now
sit, but note that it would be meaningless without the revisions in
progress.

>and an introduction

I believe that John Demco is revising the "introduction" so that it's
current when posted here.

>(again for
>the benefit of people who don't know who they are, which is
>practically everyone) of the members of the committee, and the
>official observers.  

We're waiting for the rest of the people who have to give their
permission to return from holidays.  If it was solely up to me,
which it isn't, I'd publish this right now.

Please realize that all these things do take a bit of time, and
the discussion that resulted in the creation of this newsgroup
only started about 30 days ago as private email.  A lot of the
committee members are still away and don't even know about it yet!

                --ed            (Ed Hew)
--
        Canadian UUCP Map Coordinator           <path@cs.toronto.edu>
   ==>  UUCP liason to .CA Domain Registry	<registry@cs.toronto.edu>
        XeniTec Consulting Services             <edhew@xenitec.on.ca>
Newsgroups: can.domain