Why is .gov only for US government agencies?

[the.lists at mgm51.com (Mike.)]

On 10/19/2014 at 8:13 AM Jimmy Hess wrote:

|[snip]
|So then, why aren't  .EDU and .GOV just  allowed to continue to
exist
|but a community decision made to require   whichever registry will
be
|contracted to manage .GOV to accept  registrations from _all_
|government entities  regardless of nationality  ?
|
|In otherwords, rejection of the idea that a registry operating GTLD
|namespace can be allowed to impose overly exclusive "eligibility
|criteria"
 =============


I'd rather see .gov (and by implication, .edu) usage phased out and
replaced by country-specific domain names (e.g. fed.us).

imo, the better way to fix an anachronism is not to bend the rules so
the offenders are not so offensive, but to bring the offenders into
compliance with the current rules.