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

[John Charles Broomfield <jbroom@manta.outremer.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.

NOT.

> 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 domain is no longer valid, the problem is no longer the company's, it's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.  

Only problem is that you happily ignore the reason why a company might do
this. There are two possible reasons I can think of:
a) They feel that they need a name change or have been taken over, or can't
   use their old name because of whatever (Wasn't it juno.com or something?),
   and they are VOLUNTARILY (to an extent) changing over. In this case, you
   are 100% correct in that keeping a redirect from the old domain to the
   new one should do the trick (though there are costs incurred in any case).

b) They are forced because the maintainer of the old TLD is demanding a
   ludicrous amount, or because this maintainer has gone AWOL and the TLD no
   longer resolves, or because the maintainer doesn't respond to updates for
   that domain name and your domain name servers no longer respond (because
   the ISP that held them for you has decided to go AWOL or whatever), or
   because the maintainer has suddenly decided to put your domain on hold
   because he thinks that you haven't paid, or somebody has forged your
   entry and done an update on that record and blocked it, or somebody has
   decided to pay a bunch of money to the maintainer and he thinks it's a
   good idea to terminate your contract and give it to the other or....
   (insert many other reasons along the same lines)

You can resume "a" as "you want to change your domain because you want to".
You can resume "b" as "you are forced to change your domain because you have
BIG trouble with the maintainer of the TLD you are located under".

It is not "a" that worries anyone, but rather "b". You cannot forsee or plan
for "b". You are SOL if "b" happens. It is precisely that scenario we are
trying to protect from.
One of the reasons why NSI continues to be where it is right now is because
it has the veiled threat of "ok, if you don't like me, then cut me off".
It's a sort of game of "chicken". And nobody can cut NSI off just like that
(snap fingers) at this moment (unfortunately).

Yours, John Broomfield.