RE: [wg-c] "Public" resources

["Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

> Behalf Of Kevin
> J. Connolly
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 1999 5:28 AM

> Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu> 08/07/99 07:07PM wrote:
> >Ross Wm. Rader wrote:
> >
> >> Regardless of our different views on economic performance is
> >> the larger
> >> question of whether TLDspace should be administered as a
> >> public resource or
> >> not.
> >
> >Let me take a crack at this.
> >If we use language carefully, the only truly "public" resources
> >are ones that are not scarce and require no allocation or
> >exclusivity.
> >
>
> This is a new and interesting use of the word "public" that I
> have never seen before.

Both of you are down a rat-hole and messr. Rader should know better.
Cyberspace is a construct of man, ferkrisake! We can make it as big and
as bad/good as we want it. It's a tool, a device, and it is only limited
by the number of hosts we can attache to it. When we reach that limit we
simply build it out (IPv6). If those limits are hit, hopefully it can
build itself out (aggregate AI).If those limits are once more
approached, maybe we'll already be physically part of it.

Names, PHAH! Limited resources, PHAH! This is where folks get the
correlation between angels and pin-heads. Please bring this back from
never-never land, before you all get lost in there. We are talking about
Internet signage, if you really want bad analogies (and I suggest that
you don't), and not some public beach. Where you guys are going reads
like yet another bad rendition of "colossal cave".

TLDs are supposed to provide the context in which the SLD makes sense.
This is why TLDs were all originally "chartered" TLDs. The charter
provided the meaning for the context and the context had a hand in
providing the meaning for the SLD. This is true for most hierachical
ordering systems. Thus IBM.COM was the comnmercial activities supported
by IBM.NET and "good works" were performed and organized by IBM.ORG. I
might add that GOV and EDU are really private TLDs as it can also be
argued that all "trademark chartered" TLDs are also private TLDs. The
fact that the COM/NET/ORG charters have been allowed to lapse is a side
issue.

The issue of depth has meaning as well. I consider this for the same
reason that I always sym-link /usr/local/src/app/src to /opt/app/src, it
saves me three layers of directory structure, which I get tired of
continuously typeing in. The naming system is as functional as the unix
directory tree folks. The difference is that each branch, or
subdirectory is both a specific host and collection of hosts (MHSC.COM
resolves to an IP address and is ALSO a domain name, with multiple hosts
under it). Ergo, I have a host at the TLD level. Some purists object,
but it works and is consistant (that host also serves up html pages
<http://mhsc.com>).

Now can we work on real issues?