To me, the most significant outcome of the meeting was not the
discussion on the non-profit sector, which lasted about 3 or 4 minutes,
but the movement towards resolution of the concerns of (groups like)
ISOC-AU regarding ADNA structure and a sense of agreement and purpose
regarding that task.

Another significant thing was the emergence of the panel notion and the
specific establishment of the panel addressing the commercial sector.

These two developments were quite positive.

On the other hand,  I came away cynically wondering whether the
ambiguity in the .com.au rules is being maintained and defended
specifically to keep out competition in DNA services within that
domain.  The notion of licensing technology from MelbourneIT in order to
keep these bizarre rules in place is ludicrous.

There is an argument that the present rules serve a purpose in
maintaining some "brand" value to .com.au.  If so, then that must be
balanced against the needs of future registrants who deserve the
opportunity to work with unambiguous rules.  And if the rules can't
be automated simply, then how can a customer hope to understand them?

I'd like to see a commitment to a middle ground, where the rules are
changed only in order to become unambiguous.  Would the business
community have a problem with that?  So sure, some names will be
rejected where they might have previously been accepted, but the rules
have been tightened before, as exemplified by travel.com.au which
wouldn't pass muster today.  Those who belive in .com.au brand-value can
be pleased by the rules becoming even more exclusive.

I won't be around for a couple of days to read the chorus of agreement
:-)

Leni.