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+About GANA
+==========
+
+The GNUnet Assigned Numbers Authority (GANA) contains various registries
+we maintain, for GNUnet other projects that need names and numbers for
+use in network protocols. If you need to open a new registry, please
+feel free to contact us at gana@gnunet.org.
+
+The registry sources can be found here: https://git.gnunet.org/gana.git
+
+History
+-------
+
+Barry Leiba `wrote on April 4th 2020 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/conflict-review-dold-payto/ballot/>`_ that “Neither IANA nor participants
+in the IETF will have any necessary expertise to evaluate registration
+requests in the sort of registry described, and no one will be well
+served by the creation of such a registry at IANA. It would be far
+better to have a registration process be described in this document
+involving experts from the industry as reviewers and maintenance of the
+registrations by an industry organization, rather than by IANA.”
+
+So here we are. As IETF/IANA “lack the necessary expertise to operate a
+registry” for names and numbers used in network protocols, the GNUnet
+project is happy to step up.
+
+License
+-------
+
+The GANA database is licensed under the GPL. See ``COPYING`` in the Git
+repository.
+
+Design
+------
+
+Each registry must have a unique name and all associated information
+lives in a directory under that unique name in the Git repository.
+
+Each registry must include at least the following files:
+
+-  ``README[.*]``: document describing the purpose of the registry in
+   English
+-  ``POLICY[.*]``: registration policy, explaining required fields and
+   the procedure for adding, updating and deleting entries
+-  ``registry.rec``: GNU recutils data file with all of the current
+   entries in the registry
+-  ``Makefile``: GNU make makefile with a ``make check`` target to run
+   the validation logic. Ideally, the registry.rec should be written
+   such that the ``check`` target is simply invoking
+   ``recfix --check registry.rec``. Additional targets to convert
+   ``data.rec`` to various formats may be defined. In particular, see
+   ``format.sh`` in the root directory of the Git repository (try
+   ``--help``).