>* we were attempting to remove any ambiguity in the rules (else
>competition cannot work)
>* there would be nothing that required licensing from Melbourne IT
>* that the rules must be capable of being automated simply (else
>competition cannot work)
>

The critical point here was that the existing policy operated by Melbourne
IT in com.au *is* ambiguous, and current efforts reported (I think) to
generate software to unambiguously determine if a name is "ok" were
underway by Melbourne IT, but there was no intention by them to provide
that software to any other party at $0 

Perhaps Peter Gerrand can clarify this situation for us - the key point
being that in practice, competition in com.au is impossible without a
policy which is easy to make determinations against by any of the multiple
operators in that domain - without needing to pay someone else for software
to make a yes/no decision. That would seem, to me, to admit a couple of
potential solutions:

	- Melbourne IT turns that software, if developed, over to all com.au
registries to (a) preserve the currently integrity of the policy for new
registrations (b) ensure consistency at no cost (in the name of assisting
ADNA with making their activities workable) or:
	- the policy is changed/relaxed in a manner which does not require
extensive software or head scratching to determine whether a name is
acceptable so that significant magic software developments are not needed
to operate this domain. If that reduces (slightl) the "market brandability"
of names in com.au, so be it (in my view) - practical competition requires
practical measures.

Simon
---
Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd
31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
Email: simon§internode.com.au  Web: http://www.on.net
Phone: +61-8-8223-2999          Fax: +61-8-8223-1777