[wg-c] why not name.space style:

["Jonathan E. Graehl" <jonathan@straylight.com>]

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Allowing arbitrary two-level domain names to be registered using the
existing system would be equivalent to having all those names as TLDs
(if we were just passing around hosts files with a few thousand entries
like back in the Stone Age of the Net, fine, but the name database was
distributed with good reason).  Sure, we can separate authority over a
name from physical hosting of the name subtree, but who is compensated 
how much, and on what granularity will competition be allowed - how much
technical complexity and overhead are you willing to put up with?

The requirement that all registrations must be two levels deep is
meaningless and achieves nothing on any meaningful level except requiring
a dot somewhere in the middle of the name you register ;)  What I would
see happening is this making a lot more money for the registrars, because
you would have registrations of www.apple and mail.apple and buy.apple,
and have Apple Waste Management and Apple Computer duking it out just as
if you'd allowed them to register the entire ".apple" TLD.

The hierarchical authority structure should not be blithely thrown
away.  If you see a name that ends in .x.y.z, right now, you know that
that the name is controlled by whoever has the primary name server for
x.y.z (which may be y.z if it doesn't delegate to another server), and
ultimately, by whoever registered the second level domain name
y.z, since they can change which name server the authority for z, with
whom they registered y.z, delegates to.  *And* the technical process of
resolving the name to an IP address mirrors this authority structure
directly and simply.

What technical alternative are you proposing to allow arbitrary numbers of
TLDs or SLD/TLD combos (it makes no difference technically except for the
period that must be in the middle ;), and allow registrars and top level
name servers to compete (or be compensated based on a fair regulatory
structure)?

If you don't mean to allow arbitrary sld.tld names to be registered when
either sld or tld would be a contested trademark (isn't everything? ;),
and require the tld to be a category for if the sld is trademarked in any
category, then I like the idea.  I'd like to hear how you can make it
work.

- -Jonathan Graehl

> Thanks for the responses so far -- but nobody has told me of any
> pitfalls of implementing a name.space style internet-wide
> namespace. Why not? What do you all see as the negative aspects of
> this sort of policy?
> 
> (as a reminder, this policy would allow the creation of *infinite*
> tld's -- on demand. So you could register foo.bar and *.foo.bar, but
> no entity could buy up all of *.bar -- all registrations must be two
> levels deep.  This would also solve the problem of Apple Computer and
> Apple Waste Management both claiming rights to apple.com -- instead,
> they could split it up as apple.waste and apple.computers)
> 
> - -- 
> "Nobody has any 'Rights'. We are entitled only to Liberties"
> Adam Megacz <megacz@cmu.edu> -- for current phone/postal, see
> http://www.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/finger?q=megacz@andrew.cmu.edu
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 14:22:22 -0800
> From: "Christopher Ambler" <cambler@iodesign.com>
> Subject: Re: [wg-c] So why not name.space style? [was suggestion from slashdot]
> 
> Two problems:
> 
> 1. NSI would never agree to it. If they don't agree, it's not fair (and
> probably
> not legal) to make new registries have to follow it. Convince NSI to agree,
> and it can be done.
> 
> 2. It's not technically feasible right now, the way the system works. This
> is
> a weaker reason, as the system could be changed. But for now, it's not.
> 
> - --
> Christopher Ambler
> chris@the.web

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