Re: [ga] Critics say "there's no shortage of dotcoms"

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Patcick and all remaining assembly members,

Patrick Corliss wrote:

> On Wednesday, April 11, 2001 6:22 PM (AEST)
> Gavin Stokes <gavin.stokes@autodesk.com> wrote:
> Subject: [ga] Critics say "there's no shortage of dotcoms"
>
> > Patrick, when you say:
> >
> > > Shortage?    There is no shortage of dotcoms.
> > > Inflation?      Irrelevant.
> >
> > What do you mean by "dotcoms"?  If you mean domain names (and that's the topic
> > here), it appears that a lot of people disagree with you.  After all, aren't
> > we talking about adding TLDs (in part) to alleviate this perceived shortage?
> > And here's a clip from an article on CNet:
> >
> > "Capitalizing on the shortage of domain names, the Kingdom of Tonga--the only
> > inhabited South Pacific island never to be colonized--has begun hawking the
> > ".to" designation to Netizens."
> >
> > And if artificial scarcity and inflation are irrelevant, I guess we can clear
> > the books of all those wordy antitrust laws.
>
> Hi Gavin
>
> You have said a number of things which indicate that you are not well informed
> on the subjects you have been discussing.  This is not meant as a criticism,
> just a statement of fact.

  No this is an opinion, nothing more.  Nice try though...

>
>
> And I do not really wish to enter in overlong debates on issues that have been
> discussed at length on this and other lists.  Just one or two points are worth
> clarifying.
>
> (1)    I said "dotcoms" because the general thrust of some people's argument is
> that there is a shortage in that gTLD.  Certainly there is no shortage of domain
> names at the second level.  Of course a number of these are "taken" already.

  This statement seems to be self contradictory.  Yes there is a definite
shortage of GOOD second level Domain Names available for dotcom.

>
>
> (2)    You say that "people disagree with me".  People who understand the
> subject don't.

  Not true.  Many stakeholders that understand the subject want new
gTLD's because in part that there IS a shortage of dotcoms, at the very
least good ones at the 2ld...

>  From memory 67 characters are allowed including the .com which
> is four characters.  That means you can have 63 alphanumerics before the dot.

  Yes, so your point is???

>
>
> Since there are 26 alphabetics, ten numerics and a hyphen, that's a BIG number.

  It sure is.  But it is diminished by the fact that more than 16m dotcoms have
already been registered.  Hence there is at the very least a shortage of good
2nd level DN's in the dotcom name space....  This was the gist of Gavins
original point.  Perhaps you missed that nuance....

>
>
> On this issue I'd refer you to the thread "Calculation of Domain Name Bounds" on
> Verisign's Domain-Policy mailing list last year.  See the Michael Krieger and
> Russ Smith postings below (with my initiating email) as typical examples.
>
> The URL for the archives is http://lists.netsol.com/archives/domain-policy.html
>
> (3)    Giving people "more choice" does not mean there is "a shortage".

  True.  But it does indicate that there is a shortage of good 2nd level
DN's in .com....

>
>
> (4)    You didn't explain why you think "inflation" is relevant to the perceived
> shortage of domain names.  The "antitrust laws", whilst interesting, are not
> relevant to "inflation" either.  Please don't try to confuse the issue.

  Wheather or not antitrust laws have any implication of inflation is
directly dependent upon the cost of antitrust cases over a period of time...

>
>
> Regards
> Patrick Corliss
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael M. Krieger <MKRIEGER/0005975596@MCIMAIL.COM>
> To: <DOMAIN-POLICY@LISTS.NETSOL.COM>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 8:41 AM
> Subject: Re: Calculation of Domain Name Bounds
>
>    The "exact" number of possiblities really doesn't need calculation
> as it's more than enough not only to give each electron in the universe
> (which I vaguely recall as something like 10**40) it's own IP address,
> but even a private channel from each electron to every other one.
>
>    E.g., using Bill's 255 limit, and assuming the maxiumum number of
> "."s (which maximally constrains the choices), we can count the number
> of addresses of alternating dots and single letter subdomains.  This
> is 26**127, i.e., 26 to the 127th power.  Here we've only counted
> names of the form  .x.y. ...  .z.   (127 single letter subdomains between
> 128 "."s.
>
>    Already an out of the universe number, as is the number of "labels"
> that can be done just at the 2nd level in, say, 60 characters, namely
> something between 26**60 and 27**60  (fuzzed by the slight limitations
> of using "-"s).
>
>   Of course most of these are unmemorizable nonsense strings.  But
> even if one were to limit oneself to say, the 100,000 words in the OED
> of 10 letters or less (I'm guessing here about the '100,000' just to be
> able to give an approximate example) - and only use 2nd level domains,
> that would be 6 "blocks" with 100K possiblities in each, i.e.,
> (10**5)**6 = 10**30, which ain't a shabby number either.  And these DN's
> would be much more mnemonic.  Take a look at the passwords on the free
> AOL disks to see the rich turf of pronounceable strings of just
> 10 or so letters).
>
>   All of which long ago led me to suspect that there are enough domina
> names in .com to go around if we relax a bit about wanting the "perfect"
> one.
>
>    Michael
>
>    Michael M. Krieger
>    Krieger & Nunziato llp
>    UCLA Computer Science
>    Editor, "New Matter" -
>       Intellectual Property Journal of the State Bar of California
>
>    mkrieger@mcimail.com
>
> ----------
> Date:     Tue Nov 28, 2000 10:11 am  PST
> From:     Patrick Corliss   MBX: patrick@QUAD.NET.AU
>
> TO:       DOMAIN-POLICY     MBX: DOMAIN-POLICY@LISTS.NETSOL.COM
> BCC:    * MICHAEL M KRIEGER / MCI ID: 597-5596
> Subject:  Calculation of Domain Name Bounds
>
> William X. Walsh wrote:
>
> >  The fact is that those of us telling you this are trying
> >  to do you a favor.
>
> Hi William
>
> Can you do me a favour, please?  I'd like to ask you a couple of technical
> questions.  Maybe others can help?  It's a bit of theory.
>
> (1)    If a TLD can have a 2LD etc, how many levels can you go to?  Is the
> limit physical or logical?  In other words, counting "DOT" how many dots are
> allowed in a multipart domain name.
>
> (2)    If the 2LD can go to 63 or 67 characters, does this restriction apply
> to 3LDs etc?  If every level can have 63 characters, then what's the maximum
> string length counting "DOT" and including all of the other dots.
>
> (3)    Given the physical limit set out about, do any of the files have a
> physical limit.  I remember using TPF in Qantas where block size was 1 or 2 K.
>
> (4)    Using the number, hyphen, characterproblem, what is the maximum number
> of domain names that could possibly exist?
>
> Thanks William & Others
>
> Best regards
> Patrick Corliss
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: domainiac <domainiac@HOME.COM>
> To: <DOMAIN-POLICY@LISTS.NETSOL.COM>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 10:03 AM
> Subject: Re: Calculation of Domain Name Bounds
>
> >36 + 36*36 + 36*38*36 + 36*38*38*36 + 36*(38^3)*36 + ... +
> >36*(38^249)*36 - [all combinations that have two dots in a row
> >which I would have to dig out a combinitorics book to calculate]
>
> On second thought the second part is not that difficult.  You have 249
> characters but the first and last cannot be "."-" so you are left with 247
> "interior" characters.  Now think of two dots in a row as one fixed item.
> You now have this fixed item plus 245 variable characters (and a variable
> length of the string)
>
> 1*(38^245) + 38*1*(38^244) + (38^2)*1*(38^242)+ ... (38^245)*1 +
> 1*(38^244) + 38*1*(38^243) + ... (38^244)*1 +
> 1*(38^243) + 38*1*(38^242) + ... (38^243)*1 +
> ...
> 1*(38^2) + 38*1*38 + (38^2)*1
> + 2(38)
> +1
>
> = 246(38^245) + 245(38^244) + ... 3(38^2) +2 (38) + 1
>
> -----
>
> number of .com host names (I think) = [36 + 36*36 + 36*38*36 + 36*38*38*36 +
> 36*(38^3)*36 + ... +
> 36*(38^249)*36] - [246(38^245) + 245(38^244) + ... 3(38^2) +2 (38) + 1]
>
> Russ Smith
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
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E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
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