Slashback: ICANN, OLPC, Agile, Yahoo, BayStar 84
Spamhaus case tests ICANN. narramissic writes, "The U.S. court decision against the anti-spam black-lister Spamhaus Project Ltd. may trigger a 'constitutional crisis' for the Internet, say Internet experts. At issue is whether the U.S. court has jurisdiction over the U.K.-based project. Observers worry that any attempt by U.S. courts to exert control over ICANN could be bad for the Internet. 'It's a delicate time for ICANN right now,' said David McGuire, director of communications with the Center for Democracy and Technology... 'If a court were to order ICANN to remove a domain name, we think that would be a bad precedent because making ICANN a tool of the U.S. legal system in matters such as these would sidetrack ICANN from its very important duties.'"
Time is running out for OLPC sign-up. smilindog2000 writes, "Mike Liveright made news when he pledged, 'I will purchase the $100 laptop at $300 but only if 100,000 others will too.' The deadline for his challenge is October 31, and so far, only 3,330 of us have signed up. Surely, thousands of us Slashdotters would contribute $300 out of generosity. However, I'll do it for the rare privilege of owning an original edition One Laptop Per Child machine. Do other Slashdotters want one of these beasties as badly as me? My inner child has fallen in love."
More Agile commentary from Yegge. tmortn writes, "A couple of weeks ago Steve Yegge posted a harsh critique of Agile Methodologies that enjoyed a pretty spirited debate here on Slashdot and a few other sites. Recently he posted a followup to the mounds of return fire to his rant against Agile methodologies."
Yahoo's time capsule permit revoked by Mexico. prostoalex writes, "Yahoo's time capsule project has been jeopardized by the Mexican government, who revoked the permit given to Yahoo! previously. 'We did have the permit, but Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) told us Monday night that it could not be done,' Manuel Mazzanti, head of marketing at Yahoo Mexico, said on Wednesday. An INAH spokesman said the Yahoo event posed technical and operational problems that might damage Teotihuacan. 'We are the guardians of the heritage of Mexico,' the spokesman said."
Microsoft denies BayStar connection. walterbyrd writes to point out an InfoWorld article reporting that Microsoft has denied any financial connection to BayStar, the company that bankrolled SCO's anti-open source lawsuit.
ICANN has "important duties"? No way. (Score:5, Informative)
That's not true. ICANN imposes business, economic, and legal policies (largely trademark friendly ones) onto the net, but ICANN does very little that has any contact with the actual ability of DNS servers to transform DNS query packets into DNS reply packets.
If ICANN were to vanish in a poof of green (money colored) smoke, it would be hard to say whether anybody except the trademark lawyers would notice.
On the other hand, a lot of people do believe that ICANN is some sort of FEMA protecting the upper tier of DNS from some kind of internet Katrina. ICANN has abrogated any such protective duties.
Come to think of it, yes, ICANN is the FEMA of the internet - and just like FEMA it will let us down when things technically wobble.
Attention, metamoderators (Score:2, Informative)
If you're looking at the "troll" moderation, please look up Mr. Auerbach and notice that he was on the board of ICANN. Definitely knows whereof he speaks.
Yahoo! damage to Mexican relics (Score:3, Informative)
-l
Re:ICANN has "important duties"? No way. (Score:4, Informative)
For one thing, the A root server isn't at ICANN, it's at Verisign, in Virginia.
Secondly, the L root server, which is claimined by ICANN is actually part of IANA and is one server out of about 130 root servers, so it's hardly singularly important.
And the L root server itself is not in Marina del Rey.