(cc list pruned to direct relevance only)

>Practically though, its first job will be to approve a competitor to
>Melbourne IT (since competition is really needed now that com.au is being
>done commercially) and some interested parties would themselves like to be
>competing in the com.au market. 

I would urge you to read the international top level domain material
(www.iahc.org is a good place to start). about this. "A" competitor.

X and Y are both competent to do the task. How do you pick?

X, Y, Z, X1,... are all comptent to do the task. How do you pick?

Will the non-picked folk feel they are missing out on a million dollar
bonanza and sue the pants off the decision makers? Very possibly.

The gTLD proposal states a basic level of competence and a set
of financial, organisational and procedural responsibilities for potential
competitors. The procedure assigns Arthur Andersons and an independant
verification mechanism for the financial and organisational aspects
of the task, and uses an incorporation of all competitors (CORE)
as the mechanism to implement procedural adherence. Oversight for 
CORE is provided through a Polocy Oversight body and a Policy
Advisory Body.

Outcomes:

  Any qualified party can open a registration shopfront and compete

  Policy and operations are seperated

  Policy input does not require purchase of a seat at the operations table

  operational accountability is to the customers

  policy accountability is to an open process with membership drawn
  from the constituency

Now contrasting this to the ADNA proposals I feel that the ADNA work is,
to put it charitably, weak, on all counts. Maybe the time has come to drop
it completely, and really understand this environment before proposing solutions.


regards,

  Geoff



-- 
Geoff Huston                   gih§telstra.net
Network Technical Manager      +61 6 208 1908
Telstra Internet               Locked Bag 5744, Canberra ACT 2601