Re: [wg-c] breaking up (names) is hard to do

["Mark C. Langston" <skritch@home.com>]

On 23 August 1999, John Charles Broomfield <jbroom@manta.outremer.com> wrote:
>
>Can you say EMAIL? Think of "USER@AOL.COM" and tell me how to solve that for
>14 million (?) email addresses. Think prodigy. Think compuserve. Think any

Easy.  You simply alias the old domain name to the new one for a set 
period of time, and tell your users to start using the proper domain name
in all their future correspondence.  I routinely do this for companies.
Handled correctly, the size doesn't matter.  You set a date, perform the
cutover, provide aliasing, redirects, and forwards for a period of time,
inform your users to change their practices, and everyone sucks it
up, shuts up, and copes.  After the announced date at which the old
domain is no longer valid, the problem is no longer the company's, it's
the user's.

And with a company like AOL, which provides the MUA, the browser, et al
to the customer base, this is even easier, because they just distribute
a software update which changes the appropriate config files for the
user.  

>ISP in the world. Look at your business card and tell me if you wouldn't
>mind having to scrap all the letterhead, business cards, advertising you had
>done with that address. Not to mention of course all the people who

Done it.  Several times over.  Seen it done even more.  It happens.
It's normal.  It's expected.  It's a cost of doing business.
IBM changes its motto.  They pay the cost.  AOL changes buildings.
They pay the cost.  AT&T changes its customer support number.  They
pay the cost.  The baby bells repartition the area codes in an existing
service location.  The companies affected pay the cost.  It's the way
the world goes round, and no amount of complaining about it will change
that fact.

>currently have your business card and find that they can't reach you.
>If you say it's like when telephone numbers change, well in a way when an
>area code changes, you get an automated message saying "The new area code is
>XXX", but if you've had to ABANDON your old domain name because of a dispute
>with the TLD maintainer, you're NOT going to get that help from them (or you
>wouldn't be wanting to run away from them ANYWAY).

You're ignoring my suggestion, which is that (I'll seperate it so it's
painfully clear this time):

  We establish a centralized means of providing exactly this analogue 
  for the DN system, via the registrars.  There will be a set period 
  during which for all intents and purposes the DN is in escrow, and
  forwarding/redirecting/aliasing/etc. are provided to facilitate the
  transition.  After that period, the name becomes available.  This
  period will allow the affected entity adequate time to effect 
  the necessary changes and/or notifications to interested parties.

-- 
Mark C. Langston	LATEST: ICANN refuses	Let your voice be heard:
mark@bitshift.org  to consider application for       http://www.idno.org
Systems Admin    Constituency status from organized http://www.icann.org
San Jose, CA      individual domain name owners      http://www.dnso.org