Aussie 'Net Old-Timer to Feds: No com.au!

June 13, 2001 9:25 AM

Aussie 'Net Old-Timer to Feds: No com.au!
Robert Elz, whom the SMH describes as a computer scientist at the University of Melbourne who was instrumental in wiring Oz for the Internet, has recently renewed his refusal to hand over regulatory powers of the .au ccTLD to the federal government. The SMH states that this is a battle between the old-timers, computer scientists and academics, of the 'Net and the commercial interests. Elz does not like to be photographed. A story with heart!
posted by rschram (14 comments total)

Here's Elz's department... No home page!. He said that a subdomain of .au should be .oz. I like that.
posted by rschram at 9:43 AM on June 13, 2001

Pardon the American bias... but is "federal government" referring to the national government there in Australia ? I assume as much... but I've never heard "federal" used to apply to a national government aside from the US'
posted by silusGROK at 9:50 AM on June 13, 2001

I'm not really sure how to respond to that. On one hand, I want to support him for all the work he has done.. and on the other, bringing uniformity/continuity to the whole scheme would be understandable..

hmm....
posted by Dn at 9:50 AM on June 13, 2001

Also... what on earth is a "stoush"? Is it a brouhaha of some sort?

Regarding the article: I admire Mr. Elz's tenacity... but frankly, silence is a very limited tool. How are we to know why he's being so stubborn? Is it on principle? or is he just an arse...

The best line from the article:

"The new economy depends on a stable, robust and scalable domain name system..."

That's true... but recent history seems to point at a unique inability of the current authorities to provide as much... ".BIZ"? ".MUSEUM"?

Give me a break! Short term, Americans should be expected to use an extended .US schema (.co.us and the like)... which would free-up plenty of names. Moreover, if the gtlds are to be expanded, why not something a little less anglo-centric?

Long term, I think that keywords (or the like) will probably figure prominently in any solution.
posted by silusGROK at 10:03 AM on June 13, 2001

Yes, Australia has a federal system.
posted by rschram at 10:14 AM on June 13, 2001

Many countries do visi0n.
posted by DiplomaticImmunity at 10:23 AM on June 13, 2001

Who cares why he's doing it -- it's awesome! It's cool! It's hilarious! It's lots of adjectives! Woo! I think I need a beer!
posted by tweebiscuit at 10:33 AM on June 13, 2001

Pardon the American bias... but is "federal government" referring to the national government there in Australia?

Cf. www.FED.gov.au.
posted by joeclark at 3:18 PM on June 13, 2001

The Sydney Morning Herald and, forsooth, Slashdot itself got the story wrong, according to this /. post. The writer may be biased, but says that there is no dispute with Mr. Elz, and furthermore, that he's already handed over control of .com.au, .net.au, and others -- it's .org.au that is the only sticking point. Others note that Elz's manual registration process can take months and you don't even always get a reply.

The fact is the internet no longer belongs to people like Mr. Elz or his American counterpart, the late John Postel. The internet belongs just as much to the ISPs and the dot-coms who set up shop there, and they're not going to stand for some individual's diktat ...

(Psst ... Vis1on ... they also stole English from us!)
posted by dhartung at 4:06 PM on June 13, 2001

Ooh, that's a pretty federal government web page!
posted by rschram at 4:07 PM on June 13, 2001

Keeping the off-topic part of this thread going, I think that you'll find that plenty of nations which are federations of states call their national government "Federal".
posted by grestall at 7:10 PM on June 13, 2001

May also be called the Feral Government.
posted by lagado at 8:11 PM on June 13, 2001

I consider myself pretty well-read, so I'm interested in new terms. I know that many countries have a "federal system", but had never heard the term used in a context outside of the US's.

Thanks for the gentle(-ish) lashing... and dhartung, um, I'm not sure what to say: I was just trying to clear up my on confusion on a point or two, what are _you_ trying to do?

(Oh, and while you're "here" Greg, great blog. I really enjoy your (mostly) daily posts. Congrats as well on the new member of the family.)
posted by silusGROK at 8:51 AM on June 14, 2001

We've got something even crappier than this going on in the Philippines; it isn't even a university running the show, but an individual who grabbed the ccTLD early on, who's made and continues to make megabucks off of it by charging NetSol-before-the-end-of-monopoly prices, and refuses to to turn it over either to the government or a consortium of different local internet interest groups in cooperation with the government.

In effect, the entire .ph domain is being held hostage by one guy, who has even gone so low as to market it as dotPHONE. Ugh. Plenty of lawsuits flying around here.
posted by lia at 9:01 AM on June 14, 2001