Declaration Of Independence

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one network to dissolve the political tubes which have connected them with ICANN and to assume among the powers of cyberspace, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Internet and Internet's Servers entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of the Internet Community requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all users are created equal, that they are endowed by their Providers with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are DNS, E-mail and the pursuit of Websites. – That to secure these rights, Servers are instituted among Sysops, deriving their just powers from the consent of their users, – That whenever any Form of Domain Name Service becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to quit using it, and to institute new Nameservers, laying their foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety from Spam and Freedom from Corporations. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that IP Addresses long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that users are more disposed to suffer, while registrars are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide a new NIC for their future nameservice. – Such has been the patient sufferance of the Internet Community; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of DNS. The history of the present Corporations is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Users. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the OpenNIC, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the Internet for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Networks, solemnly publish and declare, That these Networks are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Domains; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Corporate World, and that all political connection between them and the Root of Not-So-Great ICANN, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Domains, they have full Power to host Websites, send E-mail, form IRC Networks, establish Newsgroups, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Domains may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Internet Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Domains, our Hostnames and our sacred Servers.