[ih] NIC, InterNIC, and Modelling Administration

[Craig Partridge]

> I think there may be a case for saying that the inclusion of ccTLDs in
> the first place was inspired -- at least in part -- by OSI advocates
> precisely because that's the type of organization they wanted at the top.
> The fact that the codes were pulled from an ISO list might not be mere
> coincidence either, though I'm going out on a limb with that.

Actually I think you're out on the limb...

The original plan, as I recall, was to simply have gTLDs.  But somewhere
before the final TLD meeting at SRI in January 1986, there was a decision to
allow the UK to have a TLD.  Most likely this reflected a request from
Peter Kirstein.

At the January 1986 meeting, I think (and I'll note, it was not the
central topic of the meeting and I am relying on memory, so this recollection
could be faulty), we agreed to let people decide whether to register
in their country or in a gTLD.  I do remember an impassioned, by Postel
standards, statement from Jon about why would a university register under
its country when its most important attribute was that it was an educational
institution.

I also remember that either at the meeting or soon after, there was
a brief discussion of how to vet applications for ccTLDs -- Jon did not
want to be in the business of deciding who was a country and who was not.
I believe Jon was aware at that time of the two Germanys problem (which
was not, as you might imagine, between East and West Germany, but rather
an internal fight in West Germany between the PTT and a university [Karlsruhe?]
about who controlled the major Internet link into Germany and had pulled
CSNET into a diplomatic mess [US State Dept, Germany embassy, etc all leaning
on CSNET which correctly sussed that the PTT was incompetent and was loath
to abandon the competent university which was providing free Internet email
to any academic in Germany who requested it]).

So Jon discovered that ISO produced a list of country abbreviations that
was blessed by the UN or some such as reflecting the international concensus
of who was and was not a country and said "I'll use this list".  This proved
wise (e.g. the Macedonia tiff a few years later in which Jon could simply
say "I'm making no diplomatic decisions, I'm simply following the
internationally approved list").

Thanks!

Craig

PS: Side note -- while there was considerable debate on namedroppers, my
sense is that most of the key naming decisions where made by Ken Harrenstein
and Jon and they coordinated with each other.  Ken did most of the analysis
and arguing of points and Jon periodically would announce a decision.