0 START MuseDoma
By way of introduction, I would like to start with a
little history of Internet technology management – at least as understood by a
classical archaeologist such as myself.
This may be far too elementary for many of you, and may be fully unknown
for others coming from parts of the museum community that are able to focus on
content rather than connectivity issues.
I think it is essential to have some common sense of the short history
of the internet and how that history has been characterized by radical change
before jumping into the murky waters of expectations for the future with new
TLDs, in particular with the museum TLD.
Following this we will get Cary Karp to join us on the phone so we can
tell you what we understand to be the latest on various fronts.
1 http://www.iana.org/domain-names.htm
What is DNS?
There is something we use everyday called the Domain
Name System, created in the Internet’s precursor, ARPANET (the Department of
Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), to handle the easily
recognized names we use on the internet daily, etoys.com, for example, and to
map those names to unique IP addresses, which many of you are also familiar
with as a period-delimited set of four integers, 153.10.96.5, for example. This system began life pretty much as it is
today but with a single person the administrator of names, Jon Postel, who
eventually handed those duties off first to SRI International and then to IANA,
the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.
At the outset the system supported several generic top level domains or
gTLDs and a set of about 200 two-letter country-code top level domains, or
ccTLDs. These designations are on the
first level, the farthest to the right in a URL.
2 http://www.wia.org/pub/rootserv.html
The Domain Name System is maintained exclusively as
an enforceable scheme on a set of Root Servers which have a part to play in
every bit that travels across the Net.
In order to ensure consistency, the primary name set is created at Root
Server A, run by Network Solutions Incorporated for the National Science
Foundation. This name set if
periodically propagated to the other root servers.
3 http://www.iana.org/gtld/gtld.htm
The generic domains are mostly well known like .com,
.net, .org. Note here the restrictions
on the edu TLD: “reserved for educational institutions in the United States
granting four-year degrees.” These
restrictions were not recently created but were part of the restricted domain
at its inception.
4 http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm
The country codes are based on the ISO-3166 list of
two-letter country codes. These have
been variously managed or completely neglected since their inception. Some, such as TV, have been heavily marketed
by their owners in the last year as useful letter combinations that have
nothing to do with their countries. And
based on the success of that marketing effort, we are now seeing additional
ccTLDs, such as LA.
In 1991-92 the National Science Foundation (NSF)
undertook coordinating and funding the management of the non-military portion
of the Internet. In 1992 NSF contracted
with Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) to provide many of the services (hence NSI’s
current ownership of RootServer A) and, just as significantly if not more so,
was granted by Congressional statute the authority to provide for commercial
activity on NSFNET.
With the explosion of Net activity in the 90s this
theretofore closely held ‘research Net’ suddenly became a very heavily used and
widely distributed ‘commercial Net’ expected to accommodate much more. The distance between the two quickly became
an arena for lots of complaints. The
most visible because they had a clear and ever present effect on end-users were
complaints about band-width. Less
visible but perhaps more urgent were complaints about management and
governance:
·
widespread
dissatisfaction with non-competitive domain name registration
·
use
of name issues, primarily conflicts between trademark holders and domain name
holders
·
lack
of mechanisms for resolving these use-of-name conflicts, and existing ones
being expensive and cumbersome
·
commercial
interests, staking their future on the successful growth of the Internet,
calling loudly and with a lot of capital for a more formal and robust
management structure
·
quickly
growing population of Internet users outside the United States who wanted to
participate in Internet coordination
·
with
greater commercialization, it becomes less appropriate for U.S. research
agencies to direct and fund these functions
In 1996, John Postel, the author of the initial
proposal for the DNS, proposed expanding the name space. His initial proposal was large and
far-reaching. But with increasing
commercial value in names and in some quarters concern for the scalability of
the DNS, the decision to add new top-level domains was quickly reigned in. After review by many agencies and the
solicitation of much public comment, the scope of the proposal was greatly
reduced. It continued however with
several of the original goals:
·
expanded
name space with new TLDs such as .info, .nom, .store
·
tightening
up of enforcement or rules, such as those that apply to .edu
·
open
competition world-wide for domain registrations
·
less
US government activity/funding in management of the Internet
This led more or less directly to the process that
the museum TLD has been involved in since last August.
As you know the application that was submitted for
the museum TLD was submitted to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers. It was submitted on
October 2 and decisions on new TLDs were announced at ICANN’s board meeting on
November 16, 2000.
What is
ICANN? Where did it come from?
6 http://www.icann.org/general/icann-mou-25nov98.htm
Beginning in May 1997 and continuing to the November
1998 Memorandum of Understanding between ICANN and the US Department of
Commerce the DoC created ICANN as a non-governmental agency to take over its
Internet management affairs. This is in
many ways the end result of the initial adoption of Internet coordination
through NSF. The change involved
primarily the transfer and consolidation of authority for Internet governance
in ICANN which is composed of a board of directors, an at-large membership and
a string of supporting organizations.
During the last three years, the Internet world has seen significant
changes in the management of the affairs of the Internet along these lines. The current re-assignment of the Canadian
ccTLD from the University of British Columbia to the Canadian Internet
Registration Authority, a government agency, is similar if on the opposite
public-private axis. All of these
developments are not without continuing challenges and difficulties, including
fundamental questions about the Department of Commerce’s ability to have
created ICANN initially. So the process
of creating ICANN continues as a current process. And it is important that this be understood since it is having
some impact on the more visible process – creating new TLDs.
At the ICANN meeting in Yokohama in July of 2000,
the discussion of new TLDs got underway in earnest, being the only agenda topic
aside from organizing the at-large membership.
7 http://www.wia.org/pub/dns_governance_timeline.gif
A useful graph with detailed timeline of these
governance developments beginning in 1994 is available online at the World
Internetworking Alliance. You can see
there the ICANN meetings beginning at the eleventh hour. But the changes that have taken place in the
last few years – at least one aspect of them – is cogently expressed in two
images:
Before ICANN:
8 http://www.wia.org/icann/before_icann.htm
This is Jon Postel and Joyce Reynolds and was for
years the extent of the assigned names business on the Internet.
and After ICANN
9 http://www.wia.org/icann/after_icann-gac.htm
Very different.
And one of those comparisons that might make one yearn for the good old
days. Except, like most good old days,
they would be completely inappropriate and non-functional in the world as we
know it.
Where did the
.museum initiative start?
Cary Karp was at the ICANN meeting in Yokohama,
listening in, schmoozing, learning, and advocating for the cultural heritage
sector. And much to his surprise
.museum was mooted by others at the Yokohama meetings as the sort of thing that
the ICANN board envisioned and thought appropriate for the expansion of the
name space, particularly in the arena that has come to be called special
purpose TLDs. (The special purpose TLDs
that were approved by ICANN include .aero and .coop as well as .museum.)
Partly out of consulting with the International
Council of Museums (ICOM) for many years, partly out of strong personal
commitment, Cary had been thinking about a top level domain that would serve
the museum community, and more broadly the cultural heritage community since
the expansion of the name space was proposed in 1996. The cumulative result of that, including listserves and lots of
comment from around the world, can be found on this site: REMUNERE, Registry of
Museum Network Resources. ICOM early on
was recognized as the only possible partner and policy companion for such an
effort, being the only world-wide NGO representing the interests of
museums. The ICOM definition of museum
remains a key element of policy for the .museum initiative. We may want to return to that later because
of its pivotal role, but also because of the implications of .museum for the
ICOM task force that oversees the ‘maintenance’ of the definition. In general I do not expect that the policy
street from ICOM is or will be a one-way street since the growth of the
importance of online resources in all sectors will certainly motivate changes in
the scope and purpose of all such international representative organizations.
12 http://santafeopera.org/index2.php
During the summer of 2000 at the Getty, after many
discussions of the potential value of a museum domain, we decided that we
thought it an effort well worth supporting.
A quick and non-scientific poll of colleagues seemed to confirm that
feeling. That was the last week of July
2000. The next week, first week of
August 2000, I was in Santa Fe on vacation connected to email through a cell
phone. So at 9600Kbps Cary and I were
put in touch with each other by Kathleen McDonnell and quickly discovered that
the common interest in a museum domain was a good thing, that is
non-competitive, and that details could and would be eventually worked out.
13 http://www.icann.org/tlds/tld-applications-15aug00.htm
The week after that, the second week of August,
ICANN finally posted the forms and rules for applications for new TLDs with a
deadline for applications only six weeks away at the beginning of October. One week later, the third week of August, we
all met in Ottawa at the CIDOC meeting to strategize and make specific plans
for creating, writing, reviewing and submitting the complex eight-part
application due a month later.
September was full of those activities in Stockholm, Paris, Los Angeles
and Geneva leading up to the application submission on the second of
October. Key in our thinking was
maintaining this effort as one made on behalf of the museum community, and as
one that could eventually be expanded to include other cultural heritage
sectors, depending on what the first round of new TLD applications looked like. We did think that there might have been an
application on behalf of libraries.
14 www.icom.org
There has been some misunderstanding about the role
of ICOM, as there has been about the role of the Getty in this. More about that in a minute. But it is important to note here the
critical role the ICOM plays, the eagerness with which they have embraced that
role and their generosity in helping during the critical early months of the
initiative. ICOM is affiliated with
UNESCO but was created as an independent NGO in 1946. It currently has about 15,000 institutional and individual
members world wide.
15 http://www.icann.org/announcements/icann-pr16nov00.htm
Which led to the selection of new TLDs at the ICANN
meeting in Los Angeles in mid November.
.aero – Societe Internationale de Telecommunications
Aeronautiques SC, (SITA)
.biz – JVTeam, LLC
.coop – National Cooperative Business Association,
(NCBA)
.info – Afilias, LLC
.museum – Museum Domain Management Association,
(MDMA)
.name – Global Name Registry, LTD
.pro – RegistryPro, LTD
New TLDs like biz currently seem – or maybe even
seemed – to fill a clear need. But the
Internet is nothing if it is not change.
With e-toys recently admitting that there may ever only be and ever need
only be one online retailer of toys,
the dot com look-alikes may seem a little less cutting edge.
Who owns the
museum TLD?
As part of the application process for a museum TLD,
the Getty and ICOM became founder members of a new non-profit organization
incorporated in the state of Delaware and registered in the US as a
501(c)6. There are good reasons based
on the quantity of United States case law for Internet governance and disputes
to be incorporated in the US. We can
come back to this too, if anyone wants to ask additional questions about the US
incorporation. This does not mean that
the operations need be or is envisioned to be in the US. In fact, most operations now are in
Stockholm and Paris. And so the Museum
Domain Management Association – not Getty and not ICOM – was the sponsor of the
museum TLD application, and the Museum Domain Management Association – not
Getty and not ICOM – is the trustee of the domain.
MuseDoma, for short, will have other members, both
museum and non-museums, though only museum representatives may be elected to
board seats. MuseDoma has a board of
six seats: two belong to ICOM and the bylaws see that in perpetuity, two belong
to the Getty and the expectation is that those will be released when we are
satisfied the MuseDoma has achieved stable independence, two are empty. The primary responsibility of the
organization is to be the trustee of the museum domain and to set policy that
affects its operation in serving the world-wide community which MuseDoma was
founded to represent.
A 501(c)6 organization is a non-profit trade
association, that is it exists to serve its non-profit members; and as a
non-profit itself, revenue can only be used to support the goals and purposes
of the association.
Other current affiliates include:
CORE, the Internet Council of Registrars, who is
proposed at the technical registry.
CORE is also a not-for-profit membership organization which would like
to provide a shared name registration system.
18 http://www.nrm.se/welcome.html.se
Swedish Museum of Natural History, which is
currently providing in-kind support through overhead costs, staff and services.
Continuing the spirit of the Internet, all documents
to date are available – and have been available through the duration of this
process on the Web site, www.musedoma.org. These include the entire application to
ICANN, the incorporation papers and bylaws of MuseDoma, and all supporting and
related documents.
20 http://www.musedoma.org/faq.html
These Web pages also include a set of Frequently
Asked Questions that are added to and updated periodically.
21 http://listserv.musedoma.org/archives/musedoma-discuss.html
As well as an on-going discussion of topics. In short there is a lot of information
here. There is the latest information
here. And here again, let me say we are
involved in a process for which, given ICANN’s own history, even the parameters
may change weekly.
We hope and expect that MuseDoma will be a
financially viable and financially independent corporation within two years of
accepting registrations.
Now what?
In the emails that have arrived and in the
discussions that have ensued after the ICANN meeting in November, three
questions have come up with some frequency.
When can I
register in the museum domain?
ICANN suggested last November that the new TLDs
would have their contracts with ICANN in place by the end of 2000 – or that at
least the first of these would be in place.
It is important to recall here the recent history of the creation of
ICANN and the governance changes that are taking place. This is among the things that has
considerable slowed the process of contract negotiation. Assuming that this will be resolved and not
continue to delay the process of rolling out the new TLDs, MuseDoma is aiming
for initial registrations the first week of July 2001 in conjunction with the
triennial ICOM meeting in Barcelona.
One need not be at the meeting to register, obviously.
The motivation for this conjunction with the ICOM
meeting is important however. Given
current facility to market to museums, it is relatively easy to reach EU and
North American museums. Exceptionally
strong and active national associations exist in the US, Canada and the
UK. It is more difficult to effectively
reach museums elsewhere; in some parts of the world exceedingly more
difficult. And in the long-term value
we see for the domain, it is exactly those museums – the difficult to reach,
the barely visible – which we want most to reach, for which we want most to
create a welcoming community online and for which we want to help provide visibility.
Can I register
mymuseum.museum? What are the naming
conventions proposed?
The primary criterion for registration is being a
museum by the ICOM definition, as well as the many professionals and
professional membership associations that serve the museum community. Membership in ICOM or any other professional
or regional organization is not a criterion for registration.
22 http://www.icom.org/statutes.html
A museum is a non-profit making, permanent
institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the
public which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for
purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and
their environment.
(a) The above definition of
a museum shall be applied without any limitation arising from the nature of the
governing body, the territorial character, the functional structure or the
orientation of the collections of the institution concerned.
(b) In addition to institutions designated as "museums" the following qualify as museums for the purposes of this definition:
(i) natural, archaeological
and ethnographic monuments and sites and historical monuments and sites of a
museum nature that acquire, conserve and communicate material evidence of
people and their environment;
(ii) institutions holding
collections of and displaying live specimens of plants and animals, such as
botanical and zoological gardens, aquaria and vivaria;
(iii) science centres and
planetaria;
(iv) conservation institutes
and exhibition galleries permanently maintained by libraries and archive
centres;
(v) nature reserves;
(vi) international or
national or regional or local museum organizations, ministries or departments
or public agencies responsible for museums as per the definition given under
this article;
(vii) non-profit
institutions or organizations undertaking research, education, training,
documentation and other activities relating to museums and museology;
(viii) such other institutions
as the Executive Council, after seeking the advice of the Advisory Committee,
considers as having some or all of the characteristics of a museum, or as
supporting museums and professional museum workers through museological
research, education or training.
23 http://www.diarioelpais.com/muva2/
Virtual museums like this one run by Alicia Haber in
Montevideo are not specifically included in the current ICOM definition – and
must be considered viable registrants in the museum domain. This is a discussion that ICOM is having
now, and one example of the ways in which the domain will likely impact this
arena of policy.
We would like to permit institutions to register on
the second level – next to the left from the first level – but see no viable
scheme for this at the moment. I expect
museums will be able to request second level names at the outset, but we will
register individual institution names on the third level with all second-level
designations being generic or regional.
We can see that .org on the second level would be useful, also some
designation for virtual museums; and registrants may propose additional second
level names which if adopted would be available for all registrants.
We are also aware of the proposals for multilingual
character sets in the Domain Name System and expect that the museum domain will
be among the early adopters of non-Latin character sets to work in parallel
with each other and with the Latin, museum.
We have not set aside nor yet see the need to set
aside any reserved strings. But, in
order to make sense of the domain, registered names for museums will have to
have their origin in corresponding organizational names and locations.
What is the
value of a museum TLD?
This is a question that each of us will answer for
ourselves. It reminds me a little of a
moment years ago. A small and arcane
group I belonged to – PhD candidates in Art History at Princeton – would get
together now and then for a pot-luck supper.
A student from Cuba volunteered every time to bring menudo, but had the
grace to ask first if the rest of the group liked tripe. As surveys go, that was an easy
question. The surprising part was that
opinions varied.
24 http://listserv.musedoma.org/archives/musedoma-discuss.html
I expect opinions will vary on the value of the
museum domain. But I also see that it
is not one of the easy questions. If
you read through the comments made on the museum TLD on the MuseDoma Web site
25 http://forum.icann.org/tldapps/
or on the ICANN Web site, where you can read also
about the other new TLDs, the extent to which we are involved in something new
and the extent to which that elicits predictable emotions quickly becomes
clear. At the same time I readily admit
that in proposing the domain we were acting with a certain set of assumptions
and with a certain view of museums world wide that not everyone will
necessarily share.
Where is the value to museum audiences?
I think it is in the potential for greater
visibility of museums online, thus facilitating the communications and
educational missions of museums world wide.
Visibility will be enhanced greatly by a common naming scheme in a
single domain, rather than as is the case now, being scattered across several
of the top level domains. This is not
to say that multiple alternate names will not continue to exist for many
museums; I expect that will happen for lots of good reasons. This consolidation may seem like a small
thing for the National Gallery in London or the American Museum of Natural
History, but these institutions are not typical of the museum community in
terms of Web activity. Visibility will
also be facilitated through enhanced WHOIS and DNS services which MuseDoma can
take beyond the services traditionally supported. Beginning with additional information gathered in the
registration process we expect to be able to greatly increase the precision and
recall of searches for museums online.
Because the museum domain is restricted this
visibility will translate also to recognizability and the general realm of
authenticity. There are, it seems to
me, two issues here that revolve around the ability to be sure you are where
you think you are with a Web address.
One has to do with the difficulty to being sure
there is a one-to-one match in every Web browser’s (I mean the person)
expectation between the URL and the institution it purports to represent. Some of you may have never encountered the
situation where name appropriation is done specifically to divert Web traffic
because of the value of that name in the offline world. But I can assure you it happens often on a
large scale to large institutions and with less frequency and perhaps with a
more local intention to smaller public institutions. I could provide lots of examples based solely on Getty where the
insistent provider of a .xxx site – at the time of the opening of the museum in
1997 – sought out version of a jpaulgetty address which we had not already
registered.
The other has to do with the use of trademarked
names, or names close to trademarked names, that are shared. Again there are lots of Getty examples since
we share that part of our name with many individuals, many smaller companies,
and two large companies: one of which deals in oil with which there is seldom
serious confusion, and one of which deals in image licensing with which there
is probably more frequent confusion in Web browsers’ minds (people, again) than
we appreciate.
It is clear in my mind that the more we can do to
create visibility and recognizability in the online environment for museums the
better.
Where is the value to the
museum community and its individual members?
Some of the above goes
directly also to this question. But
this leads also to the value-added services that the museum domain hopes to be
able to deliver. First on my list here
is the mere existence of the museum domain.
We expected that this would begin to increase the sense of community in
the online environment for museums.
Response so far strongly suggests that this is the case, and that by
creating a locus for that community we may be able to target a set of concerns
about being online that neither money nor software are able to. We are anxious to see how this will develop
and are hopeful that it will contribute in this intangible way to help bridge
the so-called digital divide that exists for thousands of museums and
exponentially larger numbers of online visitors. Those among you who have dealt with similar visitor or audience
profile issues will already have an appreciation for this. Among the most frequently recurring of
reasons for not visiting a museum from the traditionally non-museum-visiting
segments of population in Los Angeles is that they do not perceive museums as
places they may go. They expect not to
be welcome. They expect not to know how
to behave. They expect to feel foreign. I believe we have an opportunity to mitigate
that online for institutions as well as their audiences.
26 END MuseDoma
Each museum, too will find its own value in its own
time in the museum TLD. But MuseDoma,
as the trustee of the domain, will act proactively and will be able to initiate
value-added services for its registrants.
We have had only preliminary discussion of what these might be, but you
might imagine the field is both broad and well-directed since MuseDoma will
operate as a non-profit in the services of its constituents. We could:
·
waive
registration fees for museums with operating budgets under a certain amount
·
provide
basic, limited Web hosting
·
provide
simple Web site management tools
·
provide
reference services for museum needs from vocabulary standards to professional
organizations
·
at
the request of registrants provide regional or global services such as
self-serve calendar facilities
and so on.
While it is true that this envisions something of a progressive
redistribution to benefit the less Web-enfranchised museums, it also begins to
imagine a model in which this domain can think locally with museums and their
associations around the world, and then act globally in ways that benefit the
entire community.
slides
0 START - MuseDoma
1 http://www.iana.org/domain-names.htm
2 http://www.wia.org/pub/rootserv.html
3 http://www.iana.org/gtld/gtld.htm
4 http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm
6 http://www.icann.org/general/icann-mou-25nov98.htm
7 http://www.wia.org/pub/dns_governance_timeline.gif
8 http://www.wia.org/icann/before_icann.htm
9 http://www.wia.org/icann/after_icann-gac.htm
12 http://santafeopera.org/index2.php
13 http://www.icann.org/tlds/tld-applications-15aug00.htm
15 http://www.icann.org/announcements/icann-pr16nov00.htm
20 http://www.musedoma.org/faq.html
21 http://listserv.musedoma.org/archives/musedoma-discuss.html
22 http://www.icom.org/statutes.html
23 http://www.diarioelpais.com/muva2/
24 http://listserv.musedoma.org/archives/musedoma-discuss.html
25 http://forum.icann.org/tldapps/
26 END - MuseDoma
