From: eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew)
Subject: Re: can.domain
Organization: XeniTec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
Distribution: can
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 21:50:21 GMT

In article <376@unbc.edu> lyndon@unbc.edu (Lyndon Nerenberg) writes:
>eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) writes:
>
>> all within the committee who care to look.
>
>And that seems to be the crux of the problem, does it not?

Lyndon,

That is a large part of the problem, but of course preceeded with
the fact that at the moment, there _is_ nowhere to look and there
is no public discussion to look at!  That's the deficiency that
can.domain is directly intended to alleviate.  Once it exists, we
should be able to make it very difficult for anyone to say "gee,
I didn't know what the community thinks, wants and needs".

Further, you'll recall that I've been asked to impliment a bi-
directionally gated mailing list.  In part, this is to ensure
that those on the committee living on hosts without direct
access to news will have no excuse not to participate.

>Perhaps the first posting to can.domain should be the current membership
>list of the .CA Namespace Cabal.

I personally would like to see this information posted, and would
support such a request if it appears once can.domain is created.
As I'm not the keeper of that list, I'm not the one with authority
to release it, but I know that the party who does have that authority
will see the request if you post it to can.domain.  I'll certainly
support your suggestion.  Again, your suggestion may have the desired
effect if you post it to can.domain.  Without can.domain, it'll go
nowhere.  Please post this request to can.domain as soon as it exists.

>That would make it a bit more difficult
>for them to hide like they have been doing for the last five years.

I don't so much believe that the .CA Domain Registry Committee has
been "hiding", more than that there has been no vehicle to bring
the back-room discussions to the attention of the community and
the needs of the community to those in the back-rooms.

>Posting new domain registrations to can.domain is a nice publicity
>stunt,

It's not meant to be any sort of a publicity stunt, but rather as
_part_ of the information I suggest we should all have readily available.

>but does *nothing* to address the problems we've had with the
>Invisible Namespace Committee.

(As above), can.domain is intended to facilitate communication between
parties such as yourself and the "Invisible" committee.

>I very much support the mailing list
>gateway, but if we cannot the people making the decisions to PARTICIPATE
>in useful discussions, then this whole exercise is a waste of bandwidth.

can.domain is the first public step towards engendering such
participation.  There will be a number of us actively working to
ensure that the exercise will be anything _but_ a waste of
bandwidth.  You don't really think I'm going to all this effort
because I don't have anything else to do, do you?  I also hasten
to point out that this concept isn't originally my idea.  I'm
supporting it strongly because after lengthy and careful reflection
I can clearly see the benefits to be derived by all parties concerned.

>I will support the creation of can.domain if and *only* if they agree
>(in this forum) to maintain an ongoing dialog with their "customer base"
>via the can.domain group and any and all other electronic means.

can.domain is intended to be this forum.  can.uucp isn't.  You have
every reason to expect your part of any relevant dialog to be heard
by the committee when you post it in can.domain, but without can.domain
(or an equivalent non-existent vehicle) you have absolutely no chance
of being heard, other than by indirect representation through myself
to the committee.  I don't mind representing the Canadian UUCP community,
after all, that's one of the major functions of my position on the
committee.  I'm looking for a better, more direct dialog, and with that
intention I ask that you support the creation of can.domain so that we
can get this dialog started.

>Marry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all who see this!

                --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>