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`When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare
at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*".'
(By Linus Torvalds) 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, I wasted a day in Tel Aviv, at ISOC-IL's first convention, and I met
almost none of you (linux-il people) there... you missed _almost_ nothing.

one newsflash/scoop I did get there is that Hank Nusbacher (IBM, Machba,
ISOC-IL and more) just came back from the states, where IAHC
(www.iahc.org) just finished the first draft about solving various domain
naming problems. He was one of the 10 members of this important comitee.

(to read more info, or indeed to understand the shortcuts I'm using here,
just turn to their page)

on Dec. 19 the official press release will come out. until then: this is
pretty much "priviliged" information :-) the Internet community will be
givven the draft, and IAHC will gather responses until January 27, and use
the input for the next phase. Basically it will be decided that:

* the .int iTLD will be opened for domain registrations, but limited to
large corporations such as IBM, KODAK, HP and such, which ARE
international
* a subdomain such as "tm" will be opened and filtering of companies
allowed to register as ibm.tm.int will be done by WIPO and INTA
* registering domains under .com will be put "on-hold" for a month or two
so anyone can file his objection if he thinks that the domain would
infringe his rights (like in the famous case of Warner Brothers against
RoadRunner computers, and their roadrunner.com)
* immediate domains are allowed, but will be of random 5 or 6 ascii
characters.(you get something like f1f75w.com, take it or leave it)
* more registration facilities will be allowed to open, to ease the
"pressure" on NSI. when the rates where decided on as $50 a year, it was
supposed to just cover expenses, but now NSI's revenues are at $27 million
a year from registrations, and it's expected to get as high as $160
Million by the middle of '97(!). the point is breaking the monopoly, and
moving to a less tight setup.
* five registering facilities are supposed to be started in the middle
east area, basically anyone can participate in the registration facility
license "loto" if they have $20,000 to put in downpayment (you get it back
if you don't win). there is absolutly no reason for those 4-5 companies
not to be all Israeli ones :-)
* registration of a new domain passes in round-robin between the 4-5
facilities in your geographical areas
* about 7 more gTLDs will be opened (probably .www, .comp and such) for
now. Maybe more later.

and more... stay tuned to their website, official release in 3 days.
(sorry for crossposting to Linux-il, it's off topic, I know, but I knew
more than a few people that are interested are on the list)

      --------------------------------------------------------------
      Ira Abramov, Sysadmin   <ira@scso.com>    <ira@ard.huji.ac.il>  
      Webmaster  at  the  Hebrew  University's  Authority  For R & D
      http://ard.huji.ac.il 02-65-86696 / beeper 91826 at 058-212121