The root server agreement between ICANN and ISC was published yesterday. As "agreements" go, this is a good one -- by which we mean, it reflects a peer relationship between ICANN and the root server operator and does no harm to the status quo, which is flexible and distributed. The contract, labelled a "Mutual Responsibilities Agreement" (MRA), constitutes a massive concession to distributed authority over the root server system. ICANN's Board should support it.   more »