> The IANA say on their web pages that they aren't in the
> business of deciding what is and isn't a country, and just use the
> 3166 list.
I can't speak for IANA, ICANN or anyone else, but as well as the regular
ISO3166 list (ftp://ftp.ripe.net/iso3166-countrycodes.txt) there are a
number of "exceptional" two-letter codes that are held in reserve.
The kernel.org mirror system uses some of them since they are guaranteed
not to conflict.
On this list is UK (GB being the actual 3166 designation), Guernsey (GG),
Jersey (JE), Isle of Man (IM) - and EU.
Delegation of .EU would be significant, but perhaps not quite the
precedent it seems.
> I'm really beginning to despair. ICANN were supposed to sort out all
> this stuff, but they seem too busy holding meetings in sunny places
> to do any real work or take any actual position on a direction for
> the DNS to be moving in to make it sane, futureproof and scalable.
Three answers:
1. An awful lot of work has actually been done behind the scenes on this.
I'm hoping to hear more news at RIPE 36 next week. AFAIK, the additional
gTLDs were held up while the rather painful move to a multiple registrar
COM/NET/ORG system was in progress (watching this in action in the last
couple of years was quite scary, and a lot of things could have gone
very wrong; they didn't).
2. ICANN is not a monolith. I am very pleased with the representation for
the Address Supporting Organisation (the second N in ICANN).
3. You Are An Internet User; You Have A Vote. Unfortunately, most of the
registrations so far have been from the U.S. I can't stress how
important it is for us to be properly represented.
signup: http://members.icann.org/
Dave
--
dave.wilson at heanet.ie --------------------------------------- +353-1-662-3412
It is one thing to pray; it is another to pray to entities who might not only
be listening, but who will search you out on the road and beat you across the
head with sticks if you say something that offends them. -- Neil Gaiman
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