Date:        Tue, 24 Feb 1998 00:40:12 +1100 (EST)
    From:        Deus Ex Machina <vicc&#167;cia.com.au>
    Message-ID:  <199802231340.AAA20292&#167;cia.com.au>

  | neither do I think implementing any new domains under .au prior to
  | competition can be seen as anything but self serving

I'm not sure what the relevance is - if more sub-domains of .AU are
created before sharing is implemented, it is unlikely it would be MelbIT
who is running them...   After competition works is another matter.

  | the prefered option would be to have the .com.au zone file

How the zone file will be built, etc, is one of the issues which is
delaying the sharing - it needs to be fair (unbiased) that's for sure,
almost certainly automated.   The more complex question isn't worrying
about making sure one registry's updates aren't delayed or whatever so
as to favour another, but how to deal with cases where two registries want
to install conflicting information about the same domain name.

  | nor can we have one registry enforcing its rules on another registry.

No, but I don't think that says what you believe it says.   The rules
of a registry relate to things like payments (howm when, how much, ...)
and perhaps some related to the form to be completed.   I suspect the rules
that you mean are the rules of the domain, and those, absolutely without
question, must be applied equally by all registries.   It would make no sense
for one registry to have qualification criteria (or whatever) that another
did not.

You don't believe that MelbIT really want many of the rules that exist for
com.au do you?   They'd make far more money if they simply sold as many
domains of any random name to anyone who asked - it does them no good at
all to refuse requests.   The com.au rules were in place before MelbIT
took over (though they have been slightly modified) and will remain more or
less unchanged when there is competition.

The rules are to protect the DNS itself, and to make sure it remains a
relatively sane place in which to name organisations into the far future.

Note also that the DNS provides the rough equivalent of the phone "white 
pages".   That is, assuming you know the name (exactly) you can find the
other information needed to make contact.   The DNS was absolutely not
designed as a "yellow pages" type directory - it doesn't have anything like
the right properties - ie: its intent is NOT to allow people to find things
where they don't know exactly what they're looking for.

kre