[ga-roots] Re: Alternate Roots, Naming Systems Coming Under Fire

["List Admin" <patrick@quad.net.au>]

From: Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>
To: [ga-roots] <ga-roots@dnso.org>; Patrick Corliss <patrick@quad.net.au>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 05:39:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re[2]: [ga-roots] Alternate Roots, Naming Systems Coming Under Fire


> The ones here seem to think that there must be a uniform "inclusive"
> namespace, and not multiple namespaces that are unique to each other.

It is interesteresting to watch folks subjecting something I wrote to what
appears to be an exercise in Biblical exgesis.

> That is a direct contradiction to Karl's comments, as well as his
> writings that he made even before he stood for election to the BOD.

It is my belief that we never had and never will have a global uniform
name space for the internet - we have always had bumps and lumps such as
hostfiles, hidden names (i.e. hosts behind filters/firewalls), local
naming systems (netbios, YP/NIS), configuration flaws (i.e. MX records but
no A records), etc.

As I've argued, there are non-technical pressures that push for a core of
consistency - it is, after all, inconvenient to encounter names of limited
scope, particularly when one is outside of that scope.

As came up in Stockholm during my public talk with Fred Baker - the focus
of this discussion is not on whether inconsistencies can arise, or even
whether such inconsistencies can cause some unpleasant things to happen
(they can), but whether these inconsistencies will grow to the extent that
the represent a greater inconvenience than the already-existing
inconsitencies that we have lived with for years.  And if so, is there
anything that can be done?  And if so (the Markov chain is growing) who,
if anyone, shall do the deed?

As has been pointed out in numerous places, competing roots that contain
the same data are not a danger of any kind (except perhaps to those
regulatory bodies that want to exercise control over "the name space" by
leveraging their power over a single choke-point into power over the
entire space.)

My sense is that many in the alternate root community are doing the
sensible and politic thing - avoiding situations in which direct conflicts
occur.  They seem to be saying that it is acceptable to add
non-conflicting items to the name space - much like the * and # keys added
to the 0..9 keys on old rotary dial telephones - but that it is impolitic
to invite conflicts.

That's fine, and it does raise the point that the body that provides even
that small amount coordination does have at least cast a vague shadow of
ICANN-like-ness.

My point is that even without that kind of explicit coordination there
will be pressures, pressures coming from enlightened self interest, that
will drive name space providers to come up with a product that, when
viewed by the consumer, is quite consistent with other products and
lacking in surprises.

And my further point is that the net will continue to run even if other
name space communities arise that don't want to play with the rest of us
(for example, net-gamers and kiddees are likely to adopt their own name
spaces just as they adapt their own jargon elsewhere).

--karl--


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