DRAFT

(Needs Alot Of Work!)

OpenNIC is chartered as a community interested in restoring the power of DNS back to the people who use it. OpenNIC accepts membership from anyone who can use a computer and who choose to use the services offered by OpenNIC.

Mission

To continue offering open access to DNS services to everyone.
To provide a foundation for further research and experimentation in areas related to DNS and the Internet.
To promote the benefits of an Internet that is open and free (as in "freedom") for all to use.

Organization

OpenNIC is governed as a meritocracy by a Council consisting of five members who have demonstrated commitment to the OpenNIC project over the long term. The size of the Council may vary, and new members to the Council are voted in by the Council on majority vote. The Council is ultimately responsible for all matters that pertain to the continue well-being of OpenNIC, and may delegate operational decisions to other OpenNIC members.

Policies

Policies for OpenNIC domains.

Each domain must maintain and enforce a registration/use policy for domains registered under it and for users who access the net or use services in it. A domain registration, even a Top-Level Domain, may be revoked or transferred if the responsible party fails to enforce this policy.

These policies are inherited from the higher domain, unless a vote of the higher domain authorizes a subdomain to overrule it's policy. For the purpose of inheritance, all OpenNIC TLDs are considered to inherit the general policies of the OpenNIC as their parent domain. This isn't as big a deal as it might sound, since if your don't like any of the TLDs' policies, you are encouraged to organize your own.

Creating New TLDs

New TLDs will be created by majority vote of the OpenNIC membership. Any registered member of the OpenNIC system will be able to organize a new TLD. More information can be found here and in the FAQ.

Responsibility: Domain Contacts

Note: These policies apply to Top-Level Domains as well as to lower-level domains, though due to some odddities in common email software (which will not deal with an address whose domain block only has one part) the phrase "[domain]" used below should be interpreted as "opennic.[TLD]" for Top-Level Domains.

Every domain registered through OpenNIC must maintain valid email targets for the following address:

"hostmaster@[domain]"
"abuse@[domain]"

Additionally, every domain must also maintain valid targets for the traditional administrative addresses associated with any protocols they support, such as:

"webmaster@[domain]"
"postmaster@[domain]"

Every domain which accepts subdomain registration, must maintain a web site at "www.[domain]" for managing these registrations and for keeping the OpenNIC members who hold sub-domains in that domain informed of its status and activities.

gTLD Ownership

OpenNIC does not lay claim to any gTLDs created by members in the OpenNIC network. These gTLDs belong to the respectful user in the OpenNIC community. Conflicting gTLDs will not be supported by OpenNIC.

Obnoxious Activity: Spam & Cracking

Unless the Domain policy explicitly approves it, no spamming will be tolerated either to or from OpenNIC domains. Any user who spams either from or to an address in a domain which does not explicitly approve their activity will have all of their domain registrations revoked and will not be allowed to rejoin the OpenNIC for a minimum of six months.

Similarly, abuse of other users' equipment will only be acceptible if the policies of both the source computer's domain and the target computer's domain explicitly allow it. As with spamming, all domain registrations will be revoked and the user will not be allowed to rejoin for at least six months. Anyone interested in this form of recreation should contact the Discussion email list about setting up a TLD for boxes to be used this way.

Mailing List

Code of conduct

When using the OpenNIC mailing lists, please follow these rules:

Do not send spam; see the advertising policy below.
Send all of your e-mails in English. Only use other languages on mailing lists where that is explicitly allowed.
Wrap your lines at 80 characters or less for ordinary discussion. Lines longer than 80 characters are acceptable for computer-generated output (e.g., ls -l).
Do not send automated out-of-office or vacation messages.
Do not send subscription or unsubscription requests to the list address itself; use the respective -request address instead.
Never send your messages in HTML; use plain text instead.
Avoid sending large attachments.
Do not quote messages that were sent to you by other people in private mail, unless agreed beforehand.
When replying to messages on the mailing list, do not send a carbon copy (CC) to the original poster unless they explicitly request to be copied.
If you send messages to lists to which you are not subscribed, always note that fact in the body of your message.
Do not use foul language.
Try not to flame; it is not polite.
Use common sense all the time
Never top post, and always snip irrelevant content from replies.

Advertising

Advertising on any OpenNIC related mailing list is prohibited. Any person sending such mails will be blocked from posting to any OpenNIC mailing list.

Do not allow any emails that you receive from any OpenNIC mailing lists to be sent to an automated spam reporting system. Doing so is often harmful to all users and will force us to block you from receiving traffic from all OpenNIC lists until you prove that you will not do so again.

OpenNIC Wiki : OpenNICCharter

Revision [1261]