www.YourOpenSourceProject.cx is Free

The_Jazzman writes, "Nic.cx is now offering completely free domains to those with open-source projects. Check out FAQ question 2.16." CX is Christmas Island. They're running on free software and want to give back to the community. Serious inquiries only, please. Don't abuse their kindness.

Comments

Great!

[Judg3]

This is absolutely wonderful. I'm glad to see that Cx is doing what others wont. Perhaps a new net extension of .open or .source could be added and provided free of charge too. Hell, they wanna do .shop and many others, so why not one for us? The unsung heres of the *nix community! Might be nice to have a donation driven server which hosts open source and other non-profit sites on a donation basis only... Any takers?

----------------------------------

Re:Great!

[fusion94]

We're already hosting open source projects for free.

http://sourceforge.net

Re:Great!

[Sludge]

TLDs are quite expensive to enact. I'm not sure who pays, or how much (maybe someone could reply to this), but I don't think it's too easy.

As for the unsung heros, you're dreaming. No one minority group is louder on the Internet than OSS programmers.

> Any takers?

'Any givers', you mean?

Server friendly conditions?

[fingal]

According to the Internet Weather Source it is 5am and the conditions on Christmas Island are already up to:-

• Temperature: 77 F (25 C)
• Dew Point: 73 F (23 C)
• Relative Humidity: 88%

I don't know about you but this doesn't seem to be the most appropriate conditions for keeping your servers fine and funky...
:-)

quezo sez...

[Squirtle]

Checking host: www.nic.cx port 80
(Which is really MargeSimpson.planet-three.net with an IP address of 195.224.98.195)
Operating system: 195.224.98.195:80 * Linux 1.2.xx
Web server software: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) PHP/3.0.12

Australian Net Censorship?

[fingal]

Free hosting of open source projects is "A Good Thing" and should be encouraged as much as possible, but one thought occurred to me which is that according to the government page:

" Christmas Island's full title is the Territory of Christmas Island. This is because it is an external territory of Australia. It is not autonomous, and falls under the authority of the Governor General of Australia and Australian Law."

Now, does that mean that all domains hosted under the .cx domain are subject to Australian regulations concerning content? Does the usage of a particular country's domain force you to abide by their rules, even if the servers are not physically located in the country in question?

Re:Australian Net Censorship?

[dorsai]

Humm... brings the "data haven" concept into mind.
I reckon it would be something along the lines of "web server's geographical location" - anyone know the particulars of the law on this ?
Several permutations come to mind - to the extent of a connection via satelite to a server located in a ship in international waters (Flag of origin ?).
I know it's a bit over the top, but in the long run (read a couple of years) it may be worth considering.

Re:Australian Net Censorship?

[catacow]

Funny you should mention that, because a few weeks ago there were reports in newspapers (ie. people knew about it) about a website (with a .com.au address) that was able to escape the regulations simply by moving the server overseas. The ABA (the organisation that is supposed to manage the regulations) admitted there was nothing they could do about it.

I need to stop using brackets damnit!

Re:Australian Net Censorship?

[catacow]

Try this Article

I would assume they didn't physically move the server, but just moved the content onto a server in the US.

Re:Australian Net Censorship?

[fingal]

From the above-mentioned article:-

" Technically it would appear they have complied with the law, in that it is not hosted here," Mr Nugent said. "But to the end-user, it would appear that nothing has changed.
"We are aware of the incident, and are looking at our options. It may be that all we can do is report it to the Communications Minister [Richard Alston]."
Mr Nugent said the issue of DNS records being changed to point a com.au domain name to a US server was for domain name authorities to consider, not the ABA."

OK, so this sort of deals with the issue of whether or not net censorship extends beyond the boundaries of a country even if the site is registered with a geographically orientated domain and it looks like the porn site in question might get away with it in this case.

However, does this imply anything as to whether people can set laws applying to business practices on the internet on a per-country basis. If the porn site in question was a non-profit making open access site, then I suspect that there is very little that the authorities can do, but presumably they can block the revenues from the site (if they really want to) thereby making the move outside Australian jurisdiction pointless (unless they move the company structure as well)?

Re:Australian Net Censorship?

[Yardley]

They do seem a bit strict on adherence to the law, at least from their website. I clicked the Register Domain button & up popped a username/pass box so I clicked Cancel & got this:

SECURITY WARNING

Our server has detected an error which could be seen as a possible security breach. If you just made an error then do not panic - you need do nothing (see FAQs Question 1.1 for more information). However it could also be due to diliberate misuse.

Attempts to access any information without permission are a clear breach of the Computer Misuse Act 1990. If you have just attempted an illegal access you should disconnect immediately. It is the policy of the owners of this server to report any unauthorised accesses or attempts at access to the police and ISPs.

The following information has been gathered to aid in any criminal prosecution arising from any criminal act discovered:

Your IP Address: xxx.xx.xxx.xxx (fx98104-c.maui.hi.rr.com)

Time: 13:09 Feb 21 2000 GMT

Browser and operating system: Mozilla/4.7 (Macintosh; U; PPC)

Nah, I'm not in Hawaii. I wonder if they've had any trouble in the past?

Re:Australian Net Censorship?

[hadron]

Wales has never been regarded as kingdom in recent times (it was a principality). The Kingdoms of England and Scotland were abolished by the Act of Union, and replaced with the United Kingdom of Great Britain. There are no Kingdoms of England and Scotland any more, and there is no King/Queen of England or Scotland.

Re:Australian Net Censorship?

[QuMa]

I doubt it, because as far as I can see the domain servers are located in england, and thus would not be subject to these rules. Anyway, the domain servers wouldn't be the ones providing 'objectionable' content.

Re:Australian Net Censorship?

[fingal]

speaking of strict adherance to the law, I was having a browse round the IANA website, and I found this on the IANA TLD Delegation Practices page:-

" (a) Delegation of a New Top Level Domain. Delegation of a new top level domain requires the completion of a number of procedures, including the identification of a TLD manager with the requisite skills and authority to operate the TLD appropriately. The desires of the government of a country with regard to delegation of a ccTLD are taken very seriously. The IANA will make them a major consideration in any TLD delegation/transfer discussions. Significantly interested parties in the domain should agree that the proposed TLD manager is the appropriate party. The key requirement is that for each domain there be a designated manager for supervising that domain's name space. In the case of ccTLDs, this means that there is a manager that supervises the domain names and operates the domain name system in that country. There must be Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity to the nameservers and electronic mail connectivity to the entire management, staff, and contacts of the manager. There must be an administrative contact and a technical contact for each domain. The administrative contact must reside in the country involved for ccTLDs. The IANA may choose to make partial delegations of a TLD when circumstances, such as those in a developing country, so dictate. It may also authorize a "proxy" DNS service outside of a developing country as a temporary form of assistance to the creation of Internet connectivity in new areas. [N.B. The IANA continues to receive inquiries about delegation of new gTLDs. This is a significant policy issue on which ICANN will conduct a careful study and review based on the established decision making procedures. Information about this study will be disseminated on the website at icann.org.] " (bold sections added by me)

Now, I'm a little bit confused by this because I would of thought that Christmas Island is not a developing country and therefore doesn't need to have a "proxy" DNS service (although maybe its a practical problem of running a pipe out there) but why is it not possible to track down the administrative contact that is required to be an administrator for a ccTLD? The only physical address that I can find is:-

Karinna Love
Planet Three Ltd., 3A
West Point, Warple
Way, London, W3 0RG, UK

from the CCTLD Database. Now I'm not suggesting that there is anything actually illegal or wrong going on with Planet Three, I'm just a bit confused as to why they are the administrators of the domain for Christmas Island and what everyone expects to get out of the deal? From the above text, it sounds like the "proxy" deal is only ever a temporary solution. When is Planet Three going to open their Christmas Island branch (to go with their London and Sydney branches)?

Quality control?

[SuperG]

Just a quick question, is there any word on any more stringent policy for what is or isn't a valid Open Source project? It seems fair enough that they are saying a) If we give you a domain we aren't going to rip it off you except for damn good reasons and b) we are trying to help out Open Source projects, but I'm just a little wary that it's a little open to abuse (Hello LinuxOne!), as it's at least a by default endorsement that you are running a legit Open Source project.

I know I sound paranoid (please! It's late where I live!), and this is a nice idea, I just don't want the cons to out way the pros here.

Would an explicit mention on the website with regards to what license your software is under (ie. GPL, BSD etc.) be enough?

Just wondering.....

Recommend a vacation.

[threaded]

I would imagine a good way to commend these people would be to arrange vacations there.

If places like these see their local economy improving thru these sorts of schemes then ...

Domain name, not hosting

[Krollekop]

This is not about hosting, but about free domain names.
Cx's registrants can still make their DNS point to sourceforge.net if they want. Free DNS services are available from different sites (like Granite Canyon for example,) so opensource webmasters don't even have to pay for that either.

Re:Domain name, not hosting

[fusion94]

I was responding not to the article but to the poster who stated:

"Might be nice to have a donation driven server which hosts open source and other non-profit sites on a donation basis only... Any takers?"

That's all...

What a christmas present...

[Penguin]

Okay, who asked Santa last christmas for a free domain?

Re:Just picked one up :-)

[Dougal2]

Name Planet gives you a domain name (well, something of the form firstname@lastname.tc) and mail forwarding for free: www.nameplanet.com

Re:Normal (Non Open Source) prices.

[Crazyscot]

> But can someone explain why they have prices in pounds?

The .cx NIC appears to be run by Planet Three Internet in the UK. I found this by visiting www.nic.cx and looking up nic.cx itself!

Re:VA / Slash-dot Giveaway!

[matthew.thompson]

Isn't this passing off and therefore illegal.

Unless of course Larry has a wicked sense of humour and does like to Troll /. which I most seriously hope is not true.

I know that it's not the usual thing for Slashdot to censor but maybe this would be one case where it is fiscally the right thing to do.

The Horrors.... (and other random ideas)

[trims]

Darn. Now I'm feeling old.

Not to be a complete wet blanket, but am I the only one that thinks using domain names as resource locators is wrong? I appreciate what they're doing, but in the end, we're not helping things by propogating the idea that a domain name must be inherently attached to something (often, the ONLY thing) it's named after?

Almost all of our DNS problems come from the misguided attempt of people to solve the "location" problem via domain names. People, that's not what DNS is for, period, end of argument.

Instead of caving to the masses, why aren't we working towards the real solution, a Content Registration System. Yahoo and all the portals are the first step, but really, folks, they're pretty primitive. The web spiders can no longer index the web (it's too big, and changes too fast). Rather, shouldn't we have some central place for people to register their sites? By that, I mean the content of their sites? And perhaps, provide periodic updates of their content indexes?

Sorry for the rant, and I realize this isn't exactly on topic, but DNS is really creaking these days, and it's starting to hurt me. Plus, the current situation is just, well, sooooo unaesthetic.

-Erik

Re:The Horrors.... (and other random ideas)

[bero-rh]

am I the only one that thinks using domain names as resource locators is wrong?

Not really. I'd tend to agree that a different system would be better (so Microsoft can't just take nameofanewbutimportantopensourceproject.org) - but right now, fact is that people look for name.com first - and almost all search engines give bonus points for the keyword appearing in the domain name. Since it isn't a really bad thing, it's maybe best to play with these rules until we can change them. ;)

shouldn't we have some central place for people to register their sites?

You mean http://www.freshmeat.net/?

Re:The Horrors.... (and other random ideas)

[DeepDarkSky]

Once in a while, having come up with an idea, and having to search the web to see if the domain name that describes the idea in all of its permutations (i.e. noun, verb, verb-noun, adjective-noun, noun-adjective, verb-adjective-noun, etc.), I think it is totally ridiculous, though it's a great exercise for the mind to think of all the synonymous/homonymous words/names.

And certainly, all the domain-squatting may decrease a little.

However, people are not likely to change this until there is deemed an urgency. Some well-intentioned people (much like the ones who invented the Internet, and the open-source community, etc.) will not sit passively and wait, and will instead actively plan on it.

But then again, it's like one of those things that was a bad idea originally, but then becomes a feature because everyone is using it that way. It becomes the accepted norm, by popularity, and gets infused into the culture.

My question is, how do you change things now that the Internet has gotten so much momentum? It's easier to change things if you are not changing directions so much (like all the versions of HTML - incremental changes that goes with the flow with little corrective steps). If it's going to be in a fundamentally different direction, even if it is the greatest idea in the world, it will face considerable probability of failure.

and, it's only going to get worse, because the 'net's still growing!

Meta matters

[geophile]

So Christmas island is not a real country that belongs to a different non real country. I guess that would make it a meta-country.

I don't think so. Webster's New Collegiate sez: "... used with the name of a discipline to designate a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one".

Corrected URL and minor caution

[ajs]

Actually, the link should be to this question.

I registered a domain with them, and all worked well back when Slashdot first reported that they were up and running. They were free at first, but made it clear that a charge was comming. It looks like they intend for the Open Source project domains to be free forever, but I'd get that in writing if I were you....

Re:VA / Slash-dot Giveaway! NOT!

[Kit Cosper]

This is not an official post from Larry.

There isn't a Slashdot Giveaway

This is a bored individual who enjoys misleading people and generating unnecessary email.

Official VA promotions will always be posted on the VA Linux website.

Sorry for the confusion that has been created.

--Kit

var.cx

[QuMa]

/me is the happy owner of var.cx, great service these guys give. I can really recommend them, they're a lot cheaper than .com too...

Only problem (for me) is that you can't login over SSL, and they don't have (I do not like my pw going in plain text), and they don't have a pgp key for when you want to change your pw.

A little info about Chrismas Island

[razvedchik]

Christmas Island was named by Capt. James Cook, who just happenned to spend Christmas there. (He also spent Easter on Easter Island, and named several other islands after dates).

The reason that I know Christmas Island is that it is a mecca for flyfishers. The place is crawling with bonefish. These reflective-scaled fish move into the coral flats to feed on shrimp and crabs. When they hit a fly, they take off for San Francisco. They are a flighty fish and have good eyesight, so you have to know what you are doing with a flyrod in the first place, but bones are supposed to be one of the most addicting flyfishing species around.

Needless to say, if the Christmas Island authorities want to hire some Linux guy to help set up their networking, I would gladly volunteer.

Re:VA / Slash-dot Giveaway! NOT!

[fingal]

Hey Kit,

How did you get a score of 4 without any moderation type showing? If my memory server me when Hemos and Roblimo post replies to stories, they start at a 'normal' moderation level and have to rely on the good will of the moderators at large.

Have I missed something or is this VA correcting its public image with a special moderated account? I understand totally the motivation and personally cannot think of any other way of disprooving the fake Larry posts, but surely you should let the moderators notice your comment and moderate it up in the normal fashion.

In fact, looking back at your past history, it seems that all five of your posts have started at a moderation level of 4...

Hrmmm .... .cx

[|DaBuzz|]

Isn't this the same company that offered *free* .cx domains a year or so ago only to turn around and try to CHARGE people for them 2 months later? Yes, I think it is.

Nice way to gather personal information to serve your real purpose.

Friend at nic.cx

[The_Jazzman]

Hi all,

I originally posted this story after a friend who works at nic.cx told me all about it.

First of all, nic.cx did not *suddenly* decide to start charging for domains last year. If any of the people claiming this actually read anything relevant they would have seen that in the FAQ nic.cx were *always* going to charge for domains.

Next, this is not a two-week offer, it is going to run for as long as the cx domain does. Sometimes genuinly nice things do happen, look at <A HREF=http://www.granitecanyone>Granite Canyon</A> for proof of this. (For those not in the know, GC offer free DNS services).

Finally, I must reiterate, nic.cx are NOT going to start charging for these open-source project domains. Not now, not ever.

Here's the dirt.

[gleam]

Emailed taco. Here's the official word on Kit.

Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 18:36:07 -0500 (EST)
From: Rob Malda
Subject: Re: Kit Cosper, +4, no reason.
In-reply-to:
To: Ed Fisher
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Original-recipient: rfc822;efisher@macalester.edu
Content-Length: 457
Lines: 11

I don't know how that happened: he had his default points set to 4. Thanks for
the heads up. He must have talked someone with DB access into giving him the
bonus points. I'll look into it and make sure it doesn't happen again.

--
| Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda | Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no
| malda(@)slashdot.org | match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
| http://slashdot.org/ | --Han Solo, Star Wars

Neato-cheeto.

-ed fisher...

2nd level all the way!

[auntfloyd]

Having a real domain name is much cooler than any of that free nonsense. Not only is it easier to remember, but it shows that you are at least willing to shell out some bucks for your site.

.cx is cool, in line with .cc and .nu, but none of them compare to .com

~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd

Re:UK and Australia jointly "ruled"?!?!?!

[hadron]

Both the examples I cited are true.

You're kind of right ...

[divec]

cx is jointly shortest with the other 237 two letter domain names which represent each country in the world.
The two letter abbreviations are defined by ISO 3166. The only exception I know of is that the UK has ".uk" instead of ".gb".

Re:VA / Slash-dot Giveaway! NOT!

[fingal]

Well now nobody knows what to think. What have we got?

• A poster who claims to be "Larry Augustin" who is posting "useless garbage" for whatever reason (and who consistently (justifiably) gets moderated down to -1).
• A poster who claims to be from "VA Linux" who consistently posts directly after "Larry" discrediting the post with a mysterious bonus moderation score.
• A poster who claims to be "Ed Fisher" who claims to have an email from someone who claims to be "Rob Malda" who denies knowing where these moderation points come from and that he will "look into it and make sure it doesn't happen again".
• A defence of the rebuttal from "Kit" who has since lost his mystery points somewhere or other basically saying that he would much rather do other things "than rebutting fraudulent posts".
• An awful lot of other people such as "Bruce Perens.", "A Hitler", "B Clinton" etc etc who also may or may not be who they are.

Look. Does it really matter whether anybody says anything true of false on slashdot? Surely the moderation system is designed to let the slashdot community dispose of trolls in whichever way is seemed fit. Are you suggesting that we really believed that it was Mr Augustin who was trolling for slashdot? Don't damage the good work that Rob has been doing trying to defend his editorial integrity in the face of increasing pressure from people who would like nothing better than for slashdot to sell out so that they can sit back and say "I told you so". By all means feel free to defend whatever principles you believe in during your posts, but don't compromise your position by abusing the moderation point system. If your reasoning is valid then people will moderate you up, if not then there probably wasn't really a danger from "Larry" in the first place.