Re: [ga] Death Struggle in Name Space

[John Charles Broomfield <jbroom@manta.outremer.com>]

Hi Bradley,
	Thanks for all those nice pointers in the right direction. I really
needed them. I'll make a note of checking the O'reilly book. Just new around
here. Also thanks for all of your lessons. If you'll forward me your
consulting rates for formation I'll have a look at them.

> > So, if I understand you correctly, the ICANN action of adding ".biz" to their
> > root-zone actually messes up the way that you later add to to it.
> 
> No, it wouldn't 'mess' anything up with us technically or operationally
> from the standpoint of The PacificRoot rootzone. The ICANN .BIZ simply
> couldn't make the muster because there is a pre-existing TLD string in 
> the rootzone (The authorized one if you must have it that way) that
> belongs to ARNI.

Then as it's not a problem and ICANN is not playing with your rules (naughty
ICANN), you will just drop the ICANN ".biz", won't you (note to self: please
add the paragraph to my "words that the author will eat" file)

(...)
> So no, the foundation of The PacificRoot's rootzone is not the ICANN root,
> but rather, The PacificRoot's root servers. Everything else is built
> around that. ICANN's root is really for the most part a non-issue wrt
> building our rootzone, we merely include their operational, non-colliding
> TLDs.

I love it when managers of non-ICANN alternative roots keep insisting that
they get their information from independent sources, and that they are not
starting out from the legacy/ICANN/USG roots and adding to it. I also love
it when to date I have NEVER had a single request to also update an
alternative root instead of updating the legacy roots, despite this hand
shaking about getting information from alternative sources...

> > Interesting concept that you decide to use the USG authoritative as long as
> > it doesn't change, but if it DOES change, then you scream about it.
> um.... no.

Then why are you so bothered about ".biz"? If it was not such a hassle
and just someone wanting to add something in a rogue manner (as you seem to
imply), then you'd have already indicated that they would be ignored by you,
and that would be the end of it.

(aprox .5% of the net can actually see a ".biz today. A small % of that .5%
has actually ever typed in a .biz -my guess is that updating SOAs and
secondaries actually accounts for most of the traffic!-, and a small % of
that small % of .5% has actually ever done anything meaningful to date with
a .biz -apart from selling them- [selling air?] )

> um..... :) that's a big number when you start adding all those zeros
> behind it ;) And if it breaks things - it's everyone on the planet that is
> potentially effected.

Yes, potentially everyone is affected if I squash a bug tomorrow as
*potentially* everyone could have seen it (butterflies in NY causing
hurricanes in India, etc...). In practical terms, the only adverse effect of
the ICANN ".biz" addition is that the non-ICANN ".biz" seller finds
themselves in exactly the pickle that everyone has been pointing out for
around 6 years now (ie, doing something rogue and unsanctioned won't give
you any advantage whatsoever WRT the same thing in the legacy roots, and
might in fact make you look a bit silly).

> > step further, this would then only REALLY affect those people who actually
> > use a domain name under ".biz" which is visible through those alternative
> No, both sides of the fence.

Not really... Those claims of incredible potential relative growth (as far
as visibility), have proven for the past 5-6 years to be just that:
incredible. Most people today can't see .earth, .web or .biz and never will
see the non-ICANN version. For all PRACTICAL purposes they don't really
exist. I define practical as something that you can actually USE. You can't
SERIOUSLY try and promote your .biz/.earth/.web domain today. Nobody
exlusively uses a XXX@YYY.biz email address to be reached, etc...
So, the side of the fence not using .biz today (which is the vast majority,
not just 99.5% , but of the remaining .5% most of them don't even know/care
that the "other" .biz is there), so in practice NOBODY is going to be
affected by this DIRECTLY. Indirectly however, it is going to be that much
harder to continue justifying the existance of the non-legacy roots (apart
from on a hobbyist/fun basis. which in all honesty is all that it is today
anyway).

> > actually on an operational basis (I defy ANYONE to show me someone that will
> > really be affected by the introduction of ".biz" into the USG/ICANN roots,
> http://www.icbtollfree.com/article.cfm?articleId=5146 will lead you to a
> long list of people that will be happy to engage your defiance.

Sorry, I redefine my defiance as to wanting to be shown a
living/working/running example of a meaningful zone in use today which uses
".biz" as a primary (or very important) means of contact. Come on, give us
some numbers (like how many hits for a MAJOR ".biz" site, or how much email
destination ".biz", or how many DNS lookups of ".biz" TLD -non secondary zone
transfer in there please, or calculate on average how much of that data is
due to secondaries refreshing themselves).

> And when your friends and family give you email addresses that bounce on
> you it is you who will suffer, because it just made sense to them and all
> their other friends and relatives can now take advantage of the
> availabilty of short, meaningful, and inexpensive domain names free from
> arbitrary theft by ICANN.

Yes, you can use non-ICANN domain names today. You could also use them last
year, and also 5 years ago (how long have you been running your own .web
Chris? When was .per started?).
6 years on, and we still haven't seen the landslide of people rushing to get
NON-legacy email addresses. 6 years is a long time in Internet time, so your
wishes are still that.

> You still use punched cards and mag tape John Charles?

No, but I've also seen my share of vaporware technologies that would
dominate the world and be the best thing since sliced bread. I think it
wouldn't be unfair to compare your hopes to those of the people pushing
Esperanto (except that even they seem to have a wider user base...)
Btw, mag tape is used today far more often than non-legacy domains.

> ICANN is not authoritative for a zone - a nameserver is. A nameserver is a
> machine, and ICANN is a bunch of drycleaned, pressed, unelected, and
> larcenous collusion artists. There is a big difference. One will answer
> True or False - can you tell which one?

Semantics. The authority of a zone does not lie with a machine. It is not
the machine which chooses what is in its files. It's human beings that
decide what to put in their files. ICANN is authoritative for their
root-zone. Not A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET . The machine is just a slave that runs
software.

> Nonsense. there is but one name space. The PacificRoot merely points to
> the nameservers that are auth for all Known, non-colliding, and 
> operational TLDs on the Planet.
> 
> The difficulty you are having is in the definition of "What is a
> Collider?"

Not at all. Collision in namespace by definition is when we have conflicting
information about a certain zone. There are collisions all the time when
people switch their SLD zone from one provider to another, fail to reflect
that with the old provider and have the maintainers of their TLD reflect the
new data (the old provider gets left out in the cold).
What you are saying is that you will not leave out in the cold your current
non-ICANN ".biz" and that you will thumb your nose at the ICANN version of
it when it materializes. Famous last words.

> Machines are authoritative for zones not companies. Please take the time
> to educate yourself before using incorrect terminology that must
> continually be corrected. You are almost not making sense. 

No. People/entities/companies are authoritative in the end. Machines just
run software that those people put in it. You might aswell say that the end
users modem is authoritative because that's what is telling his computer
the DNS data that he requested. You are being too short-sighted.

> > At the base of it, there can only be ONE authoritative root-zone. You say
> Wrong. There can only be one name space. Duplicate strings means
> collisions. There "ARE" "MANY" authoritative rootzones pointing to
> authoritative TLD zones pointing to authoritative SLD zones pointing to
> authoritative 3LD zones etc...

Let me correct my phrase to:
In *practical* terms, there is only ONE authoritative root-zone.
Today that root-zone is the legacy/USG/ICANN/IANA root-zone (call it what
you want).
True, there are many people who setup rootzones to play with them (some play
more than others), but for all practical applications they are not used (at
least not in their non-legacy capacity anyway).

Yours, John Broomfield.

P.S. For those that are new on the scene, but most of the oldies knew it
anyway, the first paragraph in my message is 100% JCB sarcasm.
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