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FSF Proposes .gnu TLD To ICANN
n3rd writes "It looks like the Free Software Foundation would like a .gnu TLD (Top Level Domain) in order to 'expand the name space, particularly for individuals and software developers who cannot find the name they want from .com, .net or .org'. If additional TLDs are going to be added, shouldn't they be more 'generic' so everyone can make use of them, not just the OSS community?" No. I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
Er, what happens to DNS in this case? Namely, how are the root-level name servers allocated -- by first letter (varying load, no doubt...), or something else?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
In fact, I think that ought to be the criterion used to judge whether a proposed TLD is appropriate:
I can see creating country and language specific TLDs so that registrations can be handled by someone acting under the same legal system and speaking the same language. But that has already been done. How fine do we need to slice it?
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
or you can combine a .gnu site and a porn site and get:
www.wanna-be-doin.gnu
just my blog and pix
For the uninitiated, Stallman complained that Linux used much of gnu's software (gcc compiler, utilities, etc) yet was named for the creator of its kernel (Linus Torvalds), not really giving Stallman's group proper credit.
So Stallman proposed changing the name from linux to lignux, and this was actually done in protest in a ./configure script somewhere in a gnu utility (was it emacs? I can't recall).
This kind of self-serving garbage is not especially useful. However, the idea of a TLD is not bad, but it should be a TLD like .free -- somethat that could be set up to allow both for advocacy and more transparent signalling to the common person, since .gpl, .gnu, .fsf etc... mean nothing to the masses.
This and other "expressions of interest" can be viewed on ICANN's website.
Additionally, CPT maintains a website about new tldn's.
- Vergil
Insects and Grafitti Photos
I'd personally like to see TLDs opened up to anyone and everyone. That way, you'd have less trouble with corporations and strong-arm tactics, because they seriously couldn't register in each and every tld. In this scenario I could, for example, register a .jcd TLD. It would make the www a far more interesting place, and effectively eliminate the problem of limited space in the big three TLDs.
Of course, this probably won't happen, given that consumer interests are not held in the highest regard by ICANN. Corporations tend to have rather a lot of representation. Given how North American society is, I don't see this changing anytime soon.
Unfortunate, really.
I think allowing arbitrary top-level domains would be the best thing.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Reminds me of the e-mail address dot@dotat.at
rOD.
--
Rod Begbie done this, and he's not
I think .gnu is a little too specific. I would prefer a .dev for development effort. This way it may correspond to any type of development effort. Though I do see how this can be a problem. I would hate to see everything going to the .gnu/.lnx/.bsd/.dot route. Though the last would be cool if for no other reason.
I want to register alt-dot-net-com.com
I read a Bob Metcalfe article in InfoWorld where he proposed junking the .com, .org, .net, etc. TLDs and just keeping the country codes. I like this idea. Each country controls its own domain, and can apply whatever bizarre local interpretation of trademark law it has to its domain names. Corporations would need to register in every country in which they want a virtual presence.
The paperwork alone should keep cybersquatting to a minimum...
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
It goes better with psu (my school and employer) that way.
psu.edu
poosoo edoo
Finkployd
For details, see here.
I also liked maybe@yes.no...
-Dom
What do you think of *.OSS?
---
Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
Will ICANN do this? Heck no. Bidding wars over limited domains generates big $$$. And trademark holders like the idea of "buying up all variations of our name so no one else can use it". So between the $$$ and politics, I suppose this sensible suggestion will never happen.
.. kinda like you can have anytexthere.com,.org,.net at the moment, i.e. any text you like in the DOMAIN part of the name.
.. bastards.. I wanted doofer.org anyway 'just because' .. but it's still annoying to find those parasites out there.
Sadly, you're probably right.. although I love your proposal.. sounds like it's exactly where the internet needs to go.
In a sense (admittedly not 'technically' - your idea for subdividing based on letter is a good one), you are effectively doing away with TLDs altogether and instead making people have domains of something.something
Adding the established country codes to those domains, like apple.farms.us etc. would be a nice touch too, as it's nice to know where a particular company is and for multi-nationals, to have various websites for faster access.. apple.farms.uk for those in the UK etc..
Yes it also pisses me off that some crappy 'internet company' in the UK has 'doofer.net' and 'doofer.com' 'to protect your brand'
--
Delphis
FSCK u, @$$4013!
okay, 1) all TLD requests are premature, ICANN is trying to figure out how (and if) to review TLD requests... they aren't even reviewing them yet... and, 2) TLD requests are being made by lots of different people, for lots of different reasons, so .gnu doesn't seem so unreasonable... 3)there are currently requests for .kids, .sex, and .xxx... and serious conflicts about how to sort the content of each of these TLD's. so ICANN has quite a bit of work to do, and it'll be a long time before we see any new TLD's. so basically, for now, we need to figure out a way to wrest unused names from their "owners."
"This item contains functional sharp point."
I agree I think they should open about 16 new tld ( I dont know what all of them should be though), But I think they should have a .red or .sex for adult sites and I think they should only allow things that belong there to get that tld. I think that they should definetly not have infinite tlds. can you imagine how confusing that would be. slasdot.org, slashdot.oog, slashdot.orge. It would just be to confusing. Thats all I have to say
Visit http://www.techcomedy.com/for a few good laughs
Will this take to happen. Seriously. People have been badmittoning ideas for new TLDs around for at least 5 years. I think we really need to see .sex or .xxx before we see .gnu, though I do admit it would be cool for prestige.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
How about .suc then we could all avoid going to those stupid sites with all the dancing gifs. The sites about how someone thinks their dog should be on the internet and anything else that just is a waste of server space. I mean they have the right to have it up there, but I don't want to have to see it.
kate
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
Please learn how to pronuce GNU. it doesn'tU .html
sounds like new if you remember to say the G.
If you don't believe me then maybe you believe
Eric S. Raymond and read what he says:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/GN
If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. - Schryer
People seem to have fogotten the purpose of TLD's. They were intended to divide the Internet into broad groups such as .org for organizations, .edu for schools, .gov for government, specific foreign countries, etc. Having an infinite number of TLDs completely overrides their purpose.
Hmm.. I'd have pronounced that as:
.. .. you really go around call ing the power supply of your computer a poosoo?
:>
pee-ees-you ed-you
Odd.. Each to their own I guess..
--
Delphis
Naw, don't think so. We need unifying domains, not ones to split 'us' up more -- that only suits the purposes of the direct marketroid collective. This is a dumb idea. Sorry, .rms ;)
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
But what do I know. I program mainframes in COBOL.
ObFirstPost: fr1st p0st?
"Settle down, Beavis. We've got an experiment to do."
Yes it also pisses me off that some crappy 'internet company' in the UK has 'doofer.net' and 'doofer.com' 'to protect your brand' .. bastards.. I wanted doofer.org anyway 'just because' .. but it's still annoying to find those parasites out there.
.com/.net/.org all to yourselves?
.co.uk/.net.uk/etc domains for sites that are targeted at UK audiences. Shouldn't american only sites use .co.us / .net.us / .org.us???
Hang on - the Internet is truly international - why should you americans have
We in the UK at least try to use
.com/.net/etc should (IMHO) only be used for international sites!
I know this is going to invite major flames - but it's a fair point (if inarticulately made)
I think it's more like a polite way of saying,"No way, bozos, but thanks for asking." That's just my take though.
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
I think .GNU / .GPL / .OSS / etc. is more important than .sex / .xxx, so why not ?!?
I don't think this is going to help much, except for allowing for the existence of a parallel hidden Internet, much in the way there are hidden forums in some weblogs... Take a look at how things work in Brazil (you may prefer BabelFish)
Once I really had to take a look at a company's website and they had the sad idea of registering as www.company.ind.br. I just couldn't find it! As a rule, nobody uses TLD's other than com.br, org.br and a very few net.br.Interesting. That is exactly what I was assuming in my example.
So, okay. How do you propose to manage such domains? You've already been hit with this, but who gets www.[someTLD]? I'm not quite sure I like the "don't allow it" tack. Which ones don't we allow? Just "www"? How about "web"? "www2"? "ftp"? "mail"? "news"? "quake"? :-)
Let's assume that 1: NSI et alia get to manage all these new domains, 2: there's still a nontrivial charge (to make it expensive to snatch up www.*, for example), and 3: we can ignore really popular ones like www and ftp and such. The namespace you create is more open, yes, but also anarchic. It's a very messy system. And even if you restrict a whole bunch of second-level domains, you're just going to get a new standard, where I use w3.cogent (say) as my domain.
Re: trademarks, I do think that you are in fact optimistic that this would eliminate the copyright-domain correlation.
CT wrote: I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
:)
i can see it now. soon we'll be reading h t t p colon slash slash slash dot dot dot.
What do the good know...except what the bad teach them in their excesses? - Clive Barker
In his religion, everyone is the pope. Leave him alone, he's the pope, goddammit!
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
GNU does not deserve a TLD after 15 years of work for the community and a pity attempt to get something from the corporations does?
Well,heck, if you're going by that metric, better give one to Dr. Dobbs Journal - they've been indulging in promoting the free software community since 1976. Note the date: that's before it was even a twinkle in Stallman's eye.
Read the latest issue for more on this.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I'm not proposing that anyone can get exclusive use of a TLD, as you seem to assume in your foo.com/net example.
As for trademarks: there currently seems to be the weird assumption that anyone with a trademark is entitled to thattrademark.com. Perhaps I'm being optimistic, but I'm hoping that with a more open namespace, this special-status assumption would go away.
--
-Denor
:)
I wanted www.wwwdotcom.com
:(
... and missing.
it was free when i thought it up but being very poor, I couldnt get it
screw preview.. lets see how it comes out
---------------------------------------
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
Everyone knows that "vi" is pronounced "six".
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
What? A proposal, not a "Sure thing, we'll get right on it." I really doubt this will go through for the same reasons that the submittor suggested - this would apply only to a small community on the web. Most of the people who use the web have never heard of GNU. TLDs are needed to support huge numbers of domains... but the great majority of people who want domain names for their sites do not want .gnu But they've heard of "commercial" "organization" and "network." Yes, it would be wonderful for us, but I doubt it will come to be.
I don't wnat to discourage this, I just want to be realistic.
microsoft.gnu
Now that would be funny...or at the very least, ironic.
--
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
If the same project was supported with a different name, say .egal, would you support it?
Whats to stop me from registering sesamestreetsex.com right now? Isn't it really the same difference?
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
That does it. I'm going to apply for .period so noone will be safe.
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
Shouldn't that be "thermogoddamnits?" ;-)
Say hello to zMac.
xmen.movie.trademark
Because I shouldn't need to know the producer to find a movie with a unique name. I'm going to have to use a search engine either way, if that's the case.
then have every other possible TLD 15 letters or less be allowed *only* for non-trademarks. There would be no squatting either for trademark or non-trademark that way. The entire system would self-organize not around one common TLD that everyone has heard about, but TLDs that are English words anyone can communicate and remember, and the well-organized TM namespace for companies.
(also, they should get rid of the hyphen, but allow hyphens and spaces (and etc) to be used by clients but ignored by DNS servers -- domains should be made easy (possible?) to prounounce, remember, and read, at the same time. Ignoring some punctuation, much as it already ignores case, seems like the best way to do that).
Also, we need to lose www. What a fucking bonehead move. Use fscking web. Or better yet, have web be the default service -- forget the subnet altogether.
And DNS should have allow a failover mechanism at the client. The client is the only SPOF that is absolutely technologically necessary in all situations. That's where the redundancy should be.
Actually, if you made DNS a little smarter you could have it return a list of IPs each with port ranges and failovers etc. Then the client could go to the correct IP for the pop-3 port, without having to use mail.blah.net and news.blah.net instead of just blah.net (or blah.isp, damnit, blah.isp). And if news.blah.net it would just try news2.blah.net, etc.
Why wait for ICANN support? Why not just start an open TLD unilaterally (see the .o proposal in my posting history), start some public servers, slowly gather support from the oss community and whoever else wants to use it, and work out the "ICANN blessing" later?
Ok, so your nameserver might be a tad slower so what? Are you kidding? On most days it takes longer to look up the name on my cable modem than it does to load the page. There was a period in time when my dialup ISP got so overloaded that they had people switch the DNS order just to take some of it off the primary name server. That would suck a royal goat-ass!
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
might be worth a try if you aren't too greedy (charge less than taking you to court, and unless you had a lot of dosh or a good law degree you would lose).
.com instead. Same with any other TLD that comes along.
.us one and replacing it with something slightly more sensible than company.town.state.us (or whatever it is).
.gnu that is just silly
In the end most big companies are going to buy up all the TLD's to protect their brandname, and it makes sense, if you have hotelbookings.net, what is the chance you are going to lose half your customers the second time they visit and type
ccTLDs make some sense, and a lot of good could be done by scrapping the current
Personally though I think the Usenet hierarchy makes more sense, for a start it drills down e.g. comp.lang.perl (2000/07/12 not 12/07/2000) and it is expandable to allow for future additions. Although it has it's problems too, I'd say that if anyone can come up with a really good alternative, well...
...ok, probably everyone's going to ignore them and they will die poor and bitter, but you never know.
oh yeah,
~ppppppppö
The TLD was loss years ago. Just as IP4 was.
.coke can be owned by coke cola for world wide rights (saves alot in local lawyers)
.us and .fl.us to handle smaller business in a local area. This does not mean that some one can take your local name world-wide use it - you have the right to first refusal.
.com is US thing, .ca is a canda thing, so .us should be US thing only. .com should die die die.
.earth, so new space station will be .low-earth :-)
Start a new.
Maybe have the UN have a copyright / trademark office. You get a global mark from them. So
Then get back local
We the US can finally free the Internet of US centric.
Now order comes back, oh this is all of course realy under the
And while we are at it IP6 reverse the 254. for the xxx group 253. for casino.
Can you imagine Stallman's outrage when Disney registers disney.gnu? He won't have any say in who does or does not get a .gnu domain, so it will just turn into another reason for him to start more boycotts.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
--
GNU already does offer net resources to a lot of GNU projects. For any given GNU package, you have a high probability of getting a 2xx response from http://www.gnu.org/software/whatever/ . Try gdb, gcc, bash, etc. Furthermore, there is the enormous collection of software at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu .
Or, if you believe Richard Stallman re: 'GNU' pronounciation, see:7
http://www.gnu.or g/manual/emacs-20.3/html_chapter/emacs_4.html#SEC
Well then, I want dibs on
gary.gnu
and
no-gnu-is-good.gnu
.ms already belongs to the country of Montserrat. Adamsnames controls the tc, vg, ms, gs, and tf domains. In fact, every two letter TLD is reserved for new countries.
No. I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
I don't know about you, but I think that a TLD called "DotDot" would be much more interesting. We could call it the innuendo domain, since the domains would sound like:
Sex, dot dot dot.
Women, dot dot dot.
OhYouKnow, dot dot dot.
It would sound like every website in that TLD had an elipsis ("... ") after it for effect.
--Brogdon
This tagline is umop apisdn.
I say what we really need is a TLD expressly for non-commercial purposes. ".free" or something like it. Run by volunteers and a voting membership - not unlike Usenet. Cybersqatters could be voted out of their domains. Spammers are by definition, commercial, and are not eligible. Evidence of commercial activity would be grounds for revocation.
Edith Keeler Must Die
... nognuisgood.gnu
-Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
except of course that they charge a shitload more than Nominet, I'd really hope that gnu.org would be willing to give (ok maybe reasonable setup costs) the 3rd level domains to any valid gpl project. haha Nominet the not for profit domain registrar, bet there's some serious self kicking going on at Sandford Gate. Though I gotta say it WORKS, I've had to call them quite a few times, and I don't just get bounced from waiting to call to waiting to call all day, and they are helpful!?!?! Now NSI, it's gonna be a footnote in my will, 'don't forget to check if blah.com has been released yet'
~ppppppppö
...linked of course to...
Hmmm...that reminds me to pick up a t-shirt
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Well, it doesn't if you read his bpost a little further. He proposes using the alphabet as a natural hierarchy. I rather like that idea.
I want the domain dotat.at (austria), and then email dot@dotat.at... but it seems this domain and email belongs to a tony finch in england :(
Actually, I call it vim. Sorry.
You're going to do the landing at night, right?
One would wonder, however, if GNU would allow gpl'd software (but not gnu software) to use the gnu TLD.
Allow anything to be used as a TLD.
HOWEVER, still require registrations to consist of domain name + TLD. i.e., you must still sumbit both parts to constitute a single registration application. The TLD itself cannot be registered to anyone. and remains open for anyone to use.
I like the idea, but it breaks the hierarchical nature of DNS. Each "." in a machine name delimits a "zone of authority". With out any cacheing, you have to ask a root server for a server that can answer .org queries. Then you ask that server for a server that can answer .slashdot.org queries. Lastly you ask that server for the address of www.slashdot.org. Normally, most of this data is cached in the lower levels of the hierarchy, giving use reasonable DNS performance as well as managability.
As good as this idea is, it won't be adopted any time soon because of the infrastructure changes needed to support an unlimited number of TLDs.
Not the shortest anymore. If you owned .z, then you could very easily have your email address be x@z.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Also, we need to lose www. What a fucking bonehead move. Use fscking web. Or better yet, have web be the default service -- forget the subnet altogether.
There's nothing stopping anyone from doing this - infact most web sites work with or without the www on it. In this case the www is a machine name - as is the mail, news, etc... If these are all on one machine, and that machine is at the IP for blah.com, then you don't need the www.
Actually, if you made DNS a little smarter you could have it return a list of IPs each with port ranges and failovers etc. Then the client could go to the correct IP for the pop-3 port, without having to use mail.blah.net and news.blah.net instead of just blah.net (or blah.isp, damnit, blah.isp). And if news.blah.net it would just try news2.blah.net, etc.
Discussing your rollover idea here, this is already much the situation with mail exchance records in the DNS. You actually setup a list of mail exchangers (MX records), with the highest priority being 0. The client could just go through the list of MX records trying on after another until it gets a successful connect.
In addition to the mail records, there's nothing preventing anyone's DNS from returning IP addresses in a round-robin fashion. Then if you have a decent web browser (ie, not IE which appears to cache DNS requests) you'll get a different IP for each DNS request.
Of course, this doesn't do quite what you want - one machine name (blah.com) which connects to the appropriate machine for the request. Of course that's nothing that a simple firewall can't handle.
All in all, there's not much of a need to change the DNS system to do what you'd like. You just need to get system administrators to do it.
/... == slashdot.dot ?
As for the www.tld problem -- that's really only an artifact of the current system. Perhaps as a work-around, the "www" second-level domain would be disallowed in the new scheme.
--
Why should that be the case?
.net and .org variations?
.com version, but should they have even had to? There's still a slashdot.net that's owned by someone completely unrelated to this slashdot.
Why can't Microsoft, the trademark owner, just buy "Microsoft.com" and have a block put on all the other all the
Same goes for slashdot. They bought slashdot.org because they weren't a net entity or commercial entity... Looks like they finally got around to buying up the
All extra domains TLD's do is require people and companies to increase thier finacial outlay in order to protect the only thing that has any value on the internet: their names/web addresses.
Full name is "slash.", isn't it?
would be a nice address: http://slash./
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
I don't know who controls TLD's but I have a feeling they are based in the US. If they are, is this not very counterproductive to the WORLDww. US agencies tend to serve U$. Are TLD's controlled by a worls wide body? and if not should they? I think so.
You may be mostly sarcastic, but I think you capture the sense of what .gnu should be. .gnu should be much more inclusive than gnu.org
helloword.gnu would be a good spot for `hello world' in a large variety of languages.
microsoft.gnu would contain most of the NT Server Resource kit, seems like. Another pointer to microsoft.com would not be acceptable use of microsoft.gnu.
To be viable it would need be inclusive of the BSDs. The whole point of gnu (gnu's not unix) is to sidestep the trademark issues on the name unix. Seems like
What about .CORN? Imagine microsoft.corn with the right fonts. ;)
go visit http://www.gcc.org/
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
And I don't think "because free software people can't get the .net/.com/.org that they want" is a justification. I can't either, but I'm not petitioning for a TLD. Something to do with supply and demand. Someone beat me to the domain(s) I wanted.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
or cr.yp.to
This is a far, far better idea, if you ask me. I can't help but wonder if this is a publicity thing. FSF/GNU may have a (very) strong role in Open Source/Free software, but it is not the only entity. *.mpl, *.al (artistic licence)?
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
You can't even leave the game is the third law.
It would not require "infinite" money -- assuming you allow only a-z for characters, and that a TLD is always 3 letters, there are only 17576 possibilites. If each domain is $10 then that's only $175k. Easy for Microsoft (or another big company) to justify if needed.
"Go to www.software.gnu"
"Did you say .new?"
"No, .gnu."
Ack.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
So what? Countries can do whatever they like with their TLDs. That doesn't explain why we should "open up a few more"....
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
> With infinite TLDs, there's ...
You wouldn't have infinite TLDs.
I have experimentally discovered (using MSIE5 as an example) that the url box can be filled with up to 1033 characters. Allowing for "http://" and only a single character for the domain name itself you are still only left with 1024 chars for the TLD. (hmm. 1kb - is that a coincidence)
Now, assuming all alphas and the numbers 0-9 there are 35^1024 possible TLDs.
That's only about 1.33 x 10^1581. Microsoft could easily register that many.
:)
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
By the looks of things, things aren't working as well as planned.
Actually there is some. From PERL in the NT Server Resource kit,
Perl for Win32 Kit, build 100
Portions (C) 1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Developed by hip communications inc.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of either:
a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any later version, or
b) the "Artistic License" included in this kit.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details.
Do you even know what a heirarchical name space is? A flat name space? No. You are just a complete fuckwit mouthing off about something you know nothing about.
And what wanker moderators gave this tosspot a score of 5?
If you want to see what *should* be done with the DNS system have a look at the following link:
http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/dns/
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
It's not like the current TLD's are respected. Lots of .coms don't sell anything, and lots of .orgs aren't really organizations, and lots of .nets are just people who couldn't find the name they wanted in .com!
What to do? Add more TLDs? I say why the hell not? It's not like they are anything more than cosmetic anyways these days.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here's an interesting (and probably terrible) idea - have domain costs increase based on the number of domains you own. Say, standard rates for the first ten or so, then start raising the prices . . . Can anyone here think of a legit business that needs more than ten domain names? And it'd slow down the "domain shotgunning" a LOT, when the 100th domain costs upwards of $30K, and rising :)
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
.NRA for those websites that are armed and dangerous? .MS for every website running IIS?
Does the FSF really think that free software, as an institution, is as important as "The entire US military", "The entire US government", "All businesses", "All educational facilities?"
Sounds cocky to me.
If the ICANN board adopts a sponsorship model for special purpose TLDs, and a .gnu domain is authorized, then the FSF would likely gain a good deal of authority over registrations.
.gnu would be affiliated with RMS and his Free Software Movement. Second-level domains may very well be limited to sites that accept an FSF attitude connecting free software to free speech.
.gnu TLD could:
.com and .org and .net.
I think that Free and Open Source Software movments are taking up a good deal of the second-level name space, and predictably so, given the high level of net-savvy among FS and OSS advocates. Supporters of this type of development certainly span the spectrum from non-profit organizations through corporations and into academia. The creation of a TLD for FS/OSS would be a good courtesy to the rest of the world.
Notably, however,
This would be another FSF-sponsored perk that encourages developers to endorse copyleft. Imagine: Gimp.gnu, gnome.gnu, emacs.gnu, and gcc.gnu all become well-known URLs. The FSF could offer a free second-level domain name in this special TLD to young developers who adopt FSF principles.
OSS advocates, BSD advocates, and others who view Stallman may be specifically excluded. They may want their own TLD -- and who knows, if RMS can get his, why can't ESR?
The creation of a
(a) Consolidate free software web sites under a common TLD -- freeing up SLDs under
(b) Leverage a potentially popular TLD to encourage (at a minimum) lip service to the FSF.
(c) Catalyze the conflict that RMS, ESR, et al perceive between free software movements.
I'll be intrigued by ICANN's eventual decision on this.
afc@tonga:~$ bc
Nope, I'm afraid you cannot have 2000000000 TLD names with only 26 letters in the alphabet...bc 1.05
Copyright 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. For details type `warranty'.
26*26*26
17576
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
I doubt he'd be happy to hear that. He has reluctantly 'approved' other licences as being "Free", but would much rather everyone used The One True Licence(TM). *sigh*
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
hey - cool! so do I!
and in java and shell-script >')
The Autonomous Cow. Moo.
Imagine that you have the choice between shopping at Amazon.com or Amazon.gnu. Which one do you choose? What message does that send to the world at large? A good one, I'd think...
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
I definatly gotta say that that article was GOOD.
It had all the points that it needed and brought to light alot of aspects that many may not have even thought about in dealing with fair use and such.
Al in all good article....and I really wouldn't mind Congress steping in...I don't use Napster personally because I would much rather buy the CD or borrow a friend's for a while then go and spend my time downloading a song that is lower quality and not legal.
Just my 2 cents, plat, whatever currency you please.
-Sarkdas (The cow says "moo"...the Politician says "More money!"...the RIAA says "Napster Bad"...I say "Shush")
Maybe a more generic TLD for Free Software would be better to avoid the inevitable complaining from non-GNU folks. Then again maybe we need to rethink the "very few in number" TLD approach considering how-very-hard-it-is-to-get-a-dot-com-you-like.com.
Damn. /c0d3 sux0rs. Try it in php. I refreshed and refreshed and refreshed, so why did there appear to be no replies?
Actually, I love the idea of a .gnu TLD. This would allow me to filter those bastards at the router level.
First, enforce (technically, not legally, of course) the RFC, which specifies that a domain name is NOT a hostname. This would require the holder of www.cocacola to actually put their website at www.www.cocacola (or something like that), which would look silly and defeat the problem.
Or, we could simply make www disallowed as a second-level domain. I think that would probably remove the issue.
--
IMHO, TLD are not a definitive thing. .gnu TLD...) these will belong to history and anybody will have the possibility to own a domain like "Mirko's web page".
They were historically aimed at distributing the domains names resolution among several servers.
I believe that not too far from now (perhaps even before "Saint Ignucius" gets his
Of course, I might be wrong but I definitively think that Internet will finally be international once it has got rid of these TLD.
Cheers
PS: There should be rules against domains names batch resellers... When I registered eqrd.net, I saw that most eqXX.[net¦org¦com] were bought by a Colombian company...
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Off topic n appy poly logies but can somebody give me a US cultural lesson...can somebody explain the spiro-a.gnu ? Didn't you folks have a politician or something called Spiro Agnew or something... err , why is this funny?
Hey, I'm just a stoopid foreigner... ;-)
dot. 6D IN NS AARDVARK.WR.UMIST.AC.UK.
dot. 6D IN NS NS1.OP.net.
dot. 6D IN NS matterhorn.nielsen.net.
AARDVARK.WR.UMIST.AC.UK. 1d23h46m40s IN A 130.88.146.3
NS1.OP.net. 1d23h46m40s IN A 209.152.193.4
matterhorn.nielsen.net. 1d23h46m40s IN A 207.179.43.2
The Virtual Bookcase: book reviews
And rightly so if you ask me. Why should an organisation cry freedom but yet have a monopoly/control over something like this? Freedom means that anyone can register anything. If I want to set up my website, http://www.anti.gnu and my registration was blocked, I would be Not Impressed(TM). The words censorship and hypocrisy would be springing very quickly to mind.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Have a look at:
http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/dns/
I've also proposed this to ICANN in their public discussion forume so they know about the idea.
Not that it's rocket science...
Deleted
Well, right now I imagine 80+% of the servers handle .com domains, and the remaining deal with the other domains. From there how do they subdivide the requests for those 80% of the servers?
I imagine they would just assign x amount of domain names per DNS, and keep adding DNSes as needed, but admittedly I don't know much about how DNS works.
just my blog and pix
There's no protocol or standard that requires TLDs to be 3 letters. Country codes are two letters. And what about .arpa (yes a couple of sites still exist). TLDs can be any length.
There is trouble, and it's coming from me!
.dot on my household LAN for years! I've claimed my territory here in rural Missouri, and I'll be damned if some Rob Malda or some new-fangled international corporation thinks it can take it away from me! Damn Malda-Industrial Complex New World Order intruding on my domain!
I've been using
Fierce farm boy,
Tim
Well said and enough. Come on moderating b@#stards, shoot me down, I aint gonna be a karma whore !!!
Rapid Nirvana
URLs?
it's about the dotted quad, baby.
semantics are everything!
I don't think I would ever want to use it. If I was going to register a URL for an open source product I would register the .org.
.gnu who might not care about some of the other dns root servers out there.
But I still think that they should get it.
If they don't I hope they just set up their own root server and start giving domains out anyways to anyone with an open source product and a static IP.
All they would need to do is pursuade debian to add their gnu root server to the default bind. There are a lot of sys admins who would add
After a ten thousand or so places were registerred then the snow ball effect kicks in.
"Soon we shall be free from ICANN dominated web! HOORAY! "as pokey the penguin would say.
Interesting suggestion. But what then if I have somedomain.org, and then a company called somedomain registers somedomain as a trademark and wants somedomain.com? Do I automatically lose the right to my domain?
Just a thought.
oojah
Do you have any better hostages?
Interesting, when I first viewed the page I couldn't see that email address. Probably something to do with the <'s or something.
:-)
Thats pretty funny, and to think I just got my email adress (yes it's real)today and was so proud of it. I guess I'll go hang out back under the bridge now or something
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
Originally the TLDs existed to help sort out sites by their content.. e.g. .org's were supposed to be for non-profit organizations. This didn't quite happen, now did it? If this were the case, microsoft.org wouldn't go to the same place as microsoft.com. So what good then does it do to add more domains without registration restrictions? Without these, you can be sure microsoft.gnu is going to go to the same site as right now.
Unownable TLDs also ENDS the "domain brokering" business because specific domains cease to possess any value. If you have foo.com, foo.net, and foo.org, you can demand high $$$ from any foo entities. With infinite TLDs, there's always an alternative choice.
.com. There is a near infinite amount of .com domains already, provided you don't want an obvious one. Apple-computers.com is available, but you don't see Apple gearing up to snatch it. The domain war has never been about the shear number of available domain names, but the number of recognizable names, which won't change without regulation.
.apple TLD because its trademark is in the name?
Not quite. I can still snatch up hot.sex, free.sex, gimme.sex, etc. and sell them all for lots of money. All this does, really, is strip the ".com" and add a dot somewhere in the middle. Someone will still have the common names, as the bidding war moves from linux.com to linux.gnu.
If you want a common domain + TLD combo, you're still going to have to fight with everyone else just as we fight over
This doesn't solve the trademark issue either: Apple (as the richest of all Apple * companies) will snatch up all the obvious Apple related names (apple.store, buy.apple, etc.). If I go to buy.apple, am I looking to buy actual apples or Apple hardware and software? Who decides? And does Apple own everything in the
Anyway, if it ever goes through, I'm going only going to get stuff in the *.tld TLD, for obvious humor-related reasons. (domain.tld anyone?)
You must very specifically define each trademark (and domain name) you want.
Right. They've got Microsoft trademarked.
They bought Microsoft.com
Microsoft.net
Microsoft.org
Microsoft.is.cool
boy-do-i-love.microsoft
All contain Microsoft's trademarked term. Oh... I should have been using "Linux" as my example, shouldn't I have?
Anyways... Linus went through the trouble of trademarking, or rather taking the term that someone else trademarked from them because it was obvious that they started using it after he essentially created the term. People made outcries around here with the whole LinuxOne debacle (whatever happened to them, anyhow?), using the Linus' trademark as part their name. Why's this any different?
Back to microsoft: They're not buying up all the land in Redmond if they have a block on all the
xxx.microsoft.xxx names. They paid their money for the property where they put their buildings and Microsoft Way. They can do whatever they want with that property. The online world should be no different.
No. I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
aych tee tee pee colon slash slash slash dot dot dot
(http://slashdot.dot)
There's trouble.
And round-robin doesn't work like that at all. Each IP is in fact a SPOF -- if its down, the client that gets it will just timeout. That would be fine if the timeout were, say, 2 seconds and it automatically switched to another IP, but its generally 15+ and it doesn't automatically switch. That's downtime, not failover.
that way all the crazy stuff that's not good for "normal healthy americans" can hang out there unmolested.
I think you've neglected to consider that the internet is more politics than tech these days. It might be more convenient for everyone with a .alt TLD, but a few things would happen right away:
Public schools and libraries have censorware installed to block access to .alt web sites. Since this strategy would work quite well, with few good clean sites unfairly blocked, there is no public outrage.
ISPs regularly refuse to host .alt sites unless you pay extra. Again, since there is a quick-and-easy way to identify sketchy sites, it is effective and noncontroversial.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
I read an article about these a day or two ago, can't remember where... A friend of mine and I were discussing it, and there are a lot of ways it could go. Movies wouldn't have to scramble for a site with their name (ie: whatisthematrix.com, or (blah)themovie.com, etc.) It also talked a lot about the .kids domains, and how sites would have to pay extra to get a domain like this. I'm totally for that, especially if it keeps young'uns out of the bad stuff. I'd like to see a tld for personal sites, one that was cheap or even free, or free with ads, or whatever. .com was supposed to be commercial, and now it seems like it's everything. If these .tlds are used right, it could really open things up. The article I read (MAN i wish I could remember where) said that a lot of trademark owners were scared that they were going to lose their domains in other places, the way it was back in 94 or so.. So get ready to buy ebay.auct and mcdonalds.rest as soon as you can! ^_^
i think the thought police know i'm paranoid. Sit and Spin - a daily web c
apple.speakers.tm
apple.comptuers.tm
That's how it needs to be.
Adding the failover would break *all* the code anyway. I don't think you understood me. Both hyphens and spaces should be ignored, just like case is. That way if I say "world of dawkins dot com" people don't have to worry about whether to type "world-of-dawkins.com" (which is correct) or "worldofdawkins.com" (which is not). It's not about 4 characters, it's about 9 syllables (10 if you count the dot). It makes it too tedious to speak an URL. Already people drop the "www" off verbal references to sites when the www is necessary. "www.ebay.com" is twice as long, when pronounced, as "ebay.com". "ebay.auction.tm" would be fewer syllables than "www.ebay.com" and describes far more information. And dropping the prefix ONLY FOR WWW would not require you to run all your services on the same machine. Anyway, DNS should have port ranges so that one lookup of a machine tells you where to go for *all* services related to that machine. i.e. port 80 -> 192.168.1.2 ports 20-21 -> 192.168.1.3, etc. No, you don't understand. I'm not talking about failover of DNS servers at the client, which already exists (just add another name to resolv.conf). I mean that if slashdot.org is at two IPs, 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2, I should be able to type in "web.slashdot.org" and DNS should provide me the information necessary to automatically go to 192.168.1.2 if 192.168.1.1 is down and vice versa. Right now, Slashdot has an HTTP balancing switch that costs thousands of dollars that does this. If that switch breaks -- and it did once in the past -- human intervention is required to end the downtime. My system would end the need for that switch, end the need for that downtime, and end the need for human intervention. Once again you misunderstand. I don't want DNS to describe the ports, I want it to have ONE entry that tells you where to go to get a service.i.e. instead of two nslookups where www.slashdot.org returns one IP of 192.168.1.2 that is an HTTP switch with 3 servers with failover behind it, and nslookup of mail.slashdot.org returns 192.168.1.1, I nslookup slashdot.org and it tells me all the information I need:
ports 80,8080,443 -> 192.168.1.{3,4,5} (for web services with failover)
ports 109,110,143,220,993,995,1109 -> 192.168.1.1 (for mail services (without failover))
(Of course, you could save bandwidth by nslookup only slashdot.org:1109 if that's the port you wanted to use. But that's just detail... the main idea is there)
I don't see how that would cause problems. What I'm talking about is having each domain, instead of resolving a name to a specific machine, resolve a *set* of *services* to a *set* of machines. If you want two separate services, though, you would just use two different domains. This is already necessary. Where's the problem? You'd have slashdot.org whose news port would resolve to one IP, and internal.slashdot.org whose news port would resolve to another IP. I don't see the problem.I think that the Free Software Foundation is a little late on the ball in supporting the community
...but GNU has up until now made no moves towards supporting the Free Software community - which is why there isn't one.
.gnu TLD, instead of a .oss. sure .oss covers a broader area, but .gnu would cover a much more important movement.
yeah, the FSF has done nothing for community, all RMS does rant rant rant...nothing at all productive, like I dunno GNU, the GPL, starting the whole Free software movement, from which branched off the OSS movement.
hmm, last I checked I am part of the FSC, and so are lots of the people contributing to the GNU project.
I would much rather see a
'course that's just my opinion.
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
If you let everybody have any TLD you will just get the same fights over www.TLD or similar.
If you make specific TLDs for specific functions, you will just get fights the same as for .com, as everybody grasps for "the one right domain" for them. And Network Solutions just rakes in the $7 registration fees. They hope that with extra .com domains, they will rake in millions on people doing a pointless landgrab or registering their domain in every single TLD they can get. The only solution is meaningless TLDs. See my domain page for details.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
That I never had sexual relations with that hippie.
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
So, whatever happened to Ralph Nader's proposal for .union, .sucks, etc? Were those ever submitted?
Personally, I'd like to see .whupass, .hillbilly, and .bugware.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Make it a condition of accepting a proprietary top-level, that only a top-level can be considered to infringe a trademark, based solely on the fact that it exists. And leave the second levels alone.
Edith Keeler Must Die
No, this doesn't solve anything and just creates an inefficient mess. People will quickly settle on defining "the right" domain, such as www.TLD,
and you will be back to domain battles and have broken the efficiences of DNS.
Or perhaps they will settle on "foo.foo." Or worse, people will just try to "cover all the bases" and register as much as they can, piling up money for Newtwork Solutions and serving nobody else.
While I know one person who has proposed this does not work for Network Solutions/Verisign, if you propose this you might as well work there.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
It's just stupid. There's no good reason for Microsoft to be able to put a block on all those domains. What if a grocery store called Microsoft starts up? As long as they're not involved in computer technology, then there is no trademark violation, and so I don't see why they shouldn't be able to have a Microsoft domain. Mind you organising domain names according to the US legal system is a bit retarded, not to mention arrogant.
That said, what harm does it do if some rabid anti-MSite decides to register the microsoft.sucks domain? Nobody bloody cares. It's not like someone's going to be wanting their Win98 update, tries to go to win98.update.microsoft and *whoops*, his finger slips and accidentally types in microsoft.sucks. You seem to think that just because Microsoft owns a trademark in one small area (the computer technology area), they have some kind of right to stop everyone in the world from using the name, which, besides being illogical, is not the case in any jurisdiction in the world (that I'm aware of).
I'd really like the TLD .matrix
I can imagine my new website www.myoldPOS.matrix
or for all the little kiddies www.whatisa.matrix?
and when i press my face against the frosted shower stall
As I recall, there are a few more than 4 TLD's in the US alone... Remember .edu? You're probably not a college student, huh...? =) And the US military has .mil. Granted, most of us don't run a school or anything in the military, but most of us don't work in government either...
But other than that, I don't think there's any more...
Like the article states it should be more generic. I mean not even all of open source would want to use that...not all Open Source in GNU license or uses GNU software. Granted most does but that seems like having a .mac or .mcs for mac and microsoft people. BLAH!
I don't even try to remeber URLs that is what bookmarks and email is for....I wouldn't care if slashdot was www.slashdotistheplacetobe.dot or anything else for that matter. I have my bookmarks linked to into my homepage so all I have to remember is one URL.
Remove the spam reference to email
Uhm...
.666 or other numberic TLDs.
You are assuming three letter TLDs. Add another letter and you have to account for another x number of domains. So it is possible to have 2000000000 TLD names but not likely.
Also what about digits. that makes it 36 characters. I believe there are already
i have misplaced my signature.
I think that the Free Software Foundation is a little late on the ball in supporting the community - they needed to have something like this years before. Unfortunately, most FSF software is done cathedral-style, and that's why Open Source is a stronger idea - because it builds a community. I can get *.sourceforge.net, but GNU has up until now made no moves towards supporting the Free Software community - which is why there isn't one.
I'll support the community that supports me, thank you. In the mean time, push for a .oss for open source software.
Technically we all have Microsoft's gpl'ed software. But that's besides the point. I think http://Microsoft.gpl would be a great place to distribute it all without their permission.
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
This is nothing like censorship. I don't think censorship means what you think it means. Visit www.m-w.com
.com domain. It's commercial. Right now, we have a mess because everyone buys EVERYTHING. The above would fix the currently broken system
In the above example, you buy a domain name in the
-Jer
The DNS is an utter mess.
This is all described in:
http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/dns/
Deleted
--
You can have your cake (the unlimited TLDs) and profit too (imagine $5 domains?) Domains are already $11 US. Try www.joker.com
If you want a free domain, try www.namezero.com, but they put banners on your page.
-----------------------------
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Use IP numbers, can't see many people copyrighting those (though I heard a friendly mathematician copyrighted a bunch of large primes and then made the freely available). With search sites and bookmarks and the like you won't have to type them in very often. It'd have the nice side effect of blowing a lot of whining corporate markteting collateral out.
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
There is a LOT of Free Software out there that is not GNU or GPL'ed or anything similar. In fact, I've shipped a fully functional embedded product without a byte of GNU or GPL'ed code, so it's not impossible to find lots of non GNU stuff out there.
I really don't think we need to pollute the TLD namespace any futher by adding a TLD for one group's software movement. If anything, make it a more generic name like
If Microsoft wanted
(flame suit on)
-- Kevin
However, the article stated that proposals for TLD aren't even being considered at the moment - ICANN is still trying to hash out a procedure for determining TLDs. Does anyone have any suggestions for such distribution?
Or maybe all .gnu applications could be submitted as a poll on slashdot:
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
But this breaks the rule that says you cannot register just the TLD
No. I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
....
Why? So you can have "slash dot dot dot"? Or the domain dot.dot Let's go a level further and have dotdot.dot
Throw in some dashes and you have morse code!
BlackNova Traders
Also... weren't you /not/ supposed to have the acronym within it's own definition? You're right. However see recursion for an example of how we get away with it.
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
Sure there is:
While more TLDs might make it more expensive to snarf up all the domain names, all it means is that a company has to be more creative in their excuses as to why they need the name. I wouldn't expect companies to give up their practice of eating up all the domain names that they can, anyway. All that would do is make them more creative in the ways they do it. (Force Microsoft to be innovative in taking *microsoft*.* :))
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Hell no! It sounds too much like egalite. I want to be the best that I can be. Egalite is synonymous with mediocrite. If I can't be as good as you, the only way we can be equal is if I pull you down.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
".dot" is pretty silly, but I recently saw this email address:
<dot@dotat.at>
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
Even better, the FSF will get to keep all proceeds from providing names under gnu.org, instead of forking over money to a registrar for each .gnu that they would register.
(Unless FSF plans on an alternate method of administering a TLD, which clearly ICANN isn't even close to considering. Jeez, they're still considering how to consider *adding* TLDs...how long will it take them to consider how to consider administering the consideration of considering administration of new TLDs?)
The FSF need merely convince RedHat, SuSE, Debian &al to ship Linux, ahem, GNU/Linux distributions with named (BIND) enabled by default and the appropriate delegation entry in the /etc/named.conf file. After all, all the computers I administrate have the pointers to the AlterNIC's root servers for the domains they serve (such as .PORN).
Remember: the power lies not with they who operate the root servers but with they who call them root servers.
Ha, ha, only serious.
How is that any different than http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/12/171022 6 ???
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
More TLDs would be useful, but only if the policies for granting them were somewhat more rigorously enforced (such as with the .edu, .mil, et cetera). It needs to be enforced that a company/organization can only register a domain name in the TLDs for which they actually fit the intended requirements.
I don't want it.
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
Consider the entrenched pr0n sites that *might* move to .sex or .xxx if there was a good reason (goodness knows they couldn't be forced). They'll all put up "we have moved to purplemonkeydishwasher.sex, you will be forwarded there in a moment", so the new TLD won't categorise content.
Then there's the ones that don't want to move but will get the .xxx and point it back at their .com.
And of course there will be all the sites that use .xxx that don't have anything to do with xxx. The sites on the fringe of porn (Legend Of The Overfiend appreciation club) won't want to be categorised (read:blocked!) along with donkey sex.
It might be TLD polution - not to continue the effort to categorise by TLD - but that war's been lost. Using TLDs to categorise content is kinda screwy - considering the drunken hordes wandering the streets of geocities.com rambling on any topics they see fit.
yahoo.com, and mail.yahoo.com, when yahoo.mail is more accurate.
Categories are best left to web directories.
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
I say, go for it, quickly. People are already starting to abuse national TLDs, like the .tv .to and .is. I thing we really should open up a few more. I could easily deal with a .gnu address. I call dibs on www.sex.gnu. hehe i can't even image the pengiun pr0n that would pop up there :)
-Superb0wl
-Superb0wl
It's not that I'm lazy....it's that I just don't care.
You are happy because of the freedom you have with Linux or because AT&T decided to give you Plan 9?
I am happy that AT&T has the freedom to release Plan 9 under any license they want. I am happy that RMS has not achieved his goal of eliminating individual liberty.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
.tar.gz ?
What? You don't like? Me 'n the boys will hoffa take you out to 'talk' to ya!
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
My favorite is the one from eNom featuring the following:
This is obviously the guy I want handling my TLD.
Is RMS really so arrogant as to think ICANN will create a TLD devoted to his organization? Let's be real: GNU is a brand, and if any other brand tried to pull this kind of stunt, we'd be screaming bloody murder about the Internet succumbing to private interests. Can you imagine the outrage if someone proposed .msft? .att? .sun?
.gnu -- not in a million years.
So I say:
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Acutally, all the existing TLD's were created prior to the 'great domain name buildout'. As we all know, there are four TLDs plus the various country codes. Whose to say how the remaining countries are going to like a US-centric new TLD (like the big 4: com, org, net, gov. It may happen that all new TLD entries will have to be under (to the left of) .US.
- another cosmic ray -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
>This is nothing like censorship.
Well, you may be right. It may not be censorship by the strictest definition, but these new rules would tell people what they can and cannot do with their domains. If someone says "You can't sell a product from a personal domain," they are banning commercial speech in that sector. Sounds something like censorship to me. If that's not censorship, then what is it?
...a .dsl TLD.
Microsoft might not be able to buy out all possible variations, but it's worth noting that even at $35/year, buying the 0-4 letter suffixes would be pocket change to Bill: /usr/dict/words for all the remaining words that're 5 characters or more (including the veritable "sucks") comes up with another 42581 possibilities, which is still only another $1,490,335.
35 + 35 * 26 + 35 * 26^2 + 35 * 26^3 + 35 * 26^4 = $16,633,925.
Checking
Even before we consider the possibility of bulk discounts (I figure most registrars would be willing to cut their profit margin *REAL* thin for that kind of volume), we're literally talking pocket change for MS. Admittedly, someone could still go for "microsoft.reallysucks" or similar things, but that potential exists now in the form of "microsoftreallysucks.com/.net/.org/.cc/.tm/etc".
As a member of the ICANN at large voting body, I am a little concerned that our time is being wasted even considering it, if what I think is true: Open source software is and will always be little better than a hobby for the disaffected programmer set.
I think most of us have already heard the lucid arguments for or against advocating OSS, but the facts still stand that:
Open source projects advance at a sloth's pace and are rife with buggy, half finished projects, endless beta cycles, and a lack of culpability
Most projects are hardly useful for professional needs like graphics, modelling rendering, video and film editing, even word processing. (except for a few examples like Apache)
The entire movement is undisciplined and unfocussed like a biker gang, whereas it should start putting out software like a crack squad of navy seals if it wants to garner respect. That includes being recognized with special status like a unique TLD.
I know most of you will think of this as flamebait, but I really don't think the FSF has any accomplishments worthy of such a request. And I am a voting member at ICANN. So unless some of you can sing a convincing song to me, you know where my vote lies. Not that these TLD decisions will come up in earnest for another year or so.
Since this is a "top" level domain, and should be inclusive, I'd recomend a better domain listing would be .gpl, under which all gnu public liscenced software could put theircode and projects, if they wanted. Linux, Slashdot's code, OpenGL for Java, and all the various projects could go there. But maybe that's not enough. Perhaps it should be inclusive enough for all free-code free-software products, like bsd, apache, mozilla, and gnu software.
-Ben
I think a .gnu would be a bit too specific--implying that sites registered under this carry software licensed under GPL. Which sounds like the case in the article. However, the GPL isn't the only form of Open Source license available, and if you are truly getting a top level domain for open source that should be taken into account.
.bsd, .mit, .mpl, .qpl, etc. This would get too confusing very quickly. Right now it's fairly easy to find the software you're looking for, even without searching freshmeat or google, just go to software-name-here.org and odds are you end up at the right site. So, should we have to know the type of license the software falls under to intuitively find it?
.os (although this might get confused with operating system) or .oss (open source software).
Following the FSF lead, we would then need a
I would think a better route to go would be to use something more generic, such as
Just my 2 cents...
Dear Mr Stallman,
In reference to your proposal for a .gnu TLD, we are currently examining rules and policies for extending the TLD namespace, not accepting individual applications for new TLDs. Rest assured your suggestion that we permit expansion of the namespace is being taken with all seriousness: indeed, I can go so far as to guarantee that we will not be considering any policies which reduce the existing namespace, and we would consider no change to be no progress.
On the other hand, although we are familiar with the Free Software Foundation and its not unsubstantial contribution to the public good in terms of free software, we would like some clarification on your proposal. We note that there are a substantial number of free software projects released by individuals and organisations other than the FSF, and although a substantial number of these identify with GNU in spirit, many do not. A number of questions arise from this.
Your clarification on these issues will be appreciated.
Regards,
ICANN
AirSupply: go ahead, cut me off.
RMS KUNG FU
What you're describing isn't infinite domains. What you're describing is similar in concept to the proposal by the gTLD-MoU, where you have such TLDs as .firm and .shop, and NSI's suggestion of .banc. What youre describing is a rigid system where you have to actually be doing a certain thing to get a certain domain (like selling cars in order to be eligible for a .cars) domain.
This is a more acceptable solution, IMHO.
Well given that they have failed to work that way, it seems foolish to try to force them to now.
.org? It probably was when it started, but it's now a commercial entity. Does this make a tiny bit of difference to where readers look for the site?
Is slashdot a legitimate
If something isn't working the way it was intended, you have to look at why. There's no way to force people to use the system properly short of actually having some regulatory body enforcing the use of specific domains.
So rather than forcing people to use a broken system, why not take what we've learned from the TLD situation, and design something better suited to the way the 'net is actually being used?
Seems to me TLDs are only useful for classifying stuff when you're guessing domains. The far better way of classifying information on the 'net is the way the WWW does it - via links between those pieces of information.
What if somebody who is NOT very OSS-freindly wants to register a .gnu domain? Given that it is now SOP to register a domain in .com,.org, and .net, what will prevent Microsoft from registering microsoft.gnu?
.gnu domain is turned over to the FSF, I see no advantage to this. If control is turned over to the FSF, many people will cry fowl. You just cannot win (Thermodynamics, Law 1)
Unless the control of registration in the
www.eFax.com are spammers
eliminate ICANN. allow any and all TLDs.
I mean, really, why not? The internet porn industry is a HUGE source of content/bandwidth suck/AND revenue. Its silly for the regulatory people to pretend it aint there. After all, adult clubs/shops are listed in the phone book.
#include
-- Crutcher --
#include "disclaimer.h"
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
We're seeing a huge shift away from limited 7-bit ASCII to full 8-bit ASCII, and on to larger character sets to handle non-Western alphabets. Lets not take a conceptual step backwards to "the American alphabet is a "natural" encoding," please.
(Yes, I'm an American. Always have been.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Right now, there is only one dot-com domain (and net TLD, now generally used as a second-class .com). Aren't you forgetting someone???
-Sincerely
-Sincerely
Fauqme Indegautas
Well, it doesn't if you read his bpost a little further. He proposes using the alphabet as a natural hierarchy.
That would require infrastructure changes because currently it's the dots that delimit zones of authority. Changing to using each character of the TLD still breaks the existing infrastructure and therefore isn't a solution.
I rather like that idea.
I like the idea, too. But I still don't think it will (or should be) adopted. DNS changes like this could break a huge piece of the internet really fast. People have tried to implement new TLD naming schemes before, but without entries in the current root servers, noone can find their servers. And the roots aren't about to break a working system.
"ICANN is not considering TLD proposals.... (We) are still considering the policies for considering them," Dyson said in an email message to Wired News.
.gnu or .kids might sound like a good idea... its going to be a while before they even CONSIDER them....
As the article states, ICANN is not really accepting proposals for new TLDs. They are still developing policies for considering them. So although new TLDs like
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I like the idea of giving corporations their own top level. This gives some logical leverage to argue for keeping their lawyers out of the other hierarchies.
I'm OK with even allowing Coca Cola to determine the policies for .cocacola, even to the extent of giving them sole discretion on whether to accept registrations from the public at all. It's their top-level.
"But keep your lawyers out of my domain's hierarchy. You have your own now."
I think there's a lot of potential for solving these issues by handing out top levels corresponding to trademarks to the owners of the mark.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I can see where this is headed. Imagine this URL to get your daily geek fix.
g SlashIndex.html.gnu
http://hteeteepeeColonSlashSlashdot.slashdot.or
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
But it wouldn't be fought as much as a profitless system such as the origional poster proposed.
You can have your cake (the unlimited TLDs) and profit too (imagine $5 domains?)
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
I personally think we should take the time to completely rethink the whole system before we add more TLDs.
Why not a system like:
Add to this a more involved and enforced structure for TLDs, and we'll be in business. How about this:
This should be goverend overall by an international body (to determine TLDs) and a body in each country to determine proper assignment of the TLDs. Each entity should be able to take only one TLD per domain name (i.e. slashdot.org couldn't also get slashdot.com). Existing trademark holders should get first crack at a domain name in the appropriate TLD, and if they opt not to get it, they relinquish the right to try to get it if someone else grabs it later. Domain name reselling should be made illegal (to prevent squatting).
It's not a perfect system yet, I'm still mentally working it out. Please email me at pheonixx@bigfoot.com if you have input as to how this could be improved (or have good ideas for TLDs). I'd also like ideas as to whom ideas should be presented of this nature.
-Jer
Of course this is going to screw the lookup engines on the root servers which are optimized around having a small set of 3 letter TLDs.. It's fixable though.
As a first step, I'd go for a .gnu. Free software makes the net run and is worthy of a .net of it's own. Since GNU is kind of a brand of free software maybe a .fs (free software) would be better.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Proposing .gnu to be a TLD for open source projects doesn't seem particularly reasonable to me. After all, GNU is hardly the be-all end-all of open source software. There are a lot of people who work on a lot of good OS projects that have nothing to do with GNU. In fact, there are quite a few people who would probably resent being associated with GNU just because they're an OS project.
.ms as the TLD for all software development sites. That's not really all that different from this suggestion... Would people want to go along with that?
To make an analogy that I think people here might appreciate better, imagine if a certain company were to suggest that we should use
A "flattened" namespace is just what the doctor ordered. Yes, the DNS system should be hierarchical, but no human is anal-compulsive
/bin/ls every time? No. You have a nice path statement to provide a level of flat namespace to you. Similarly, .com acts like the "commercial bin" for the internet, and allows people to "microsoft" or "yahoo" along. Forcing humans to use hierarchies when they don't think in them leads to problems with people who can't think that way. Plus, retyping all the Department of Redundancy, Redunancy Department locational information should be automated in the first place (we use computers because they lessen workload, not increase it)!
:-)
enough to think that way, let alone follow the rules (why do you think we're in this mess in the first place?). Look at General Motors with their "gmcanada.com" site (why not gm.ca? Because they didn't know about TLDs). It's easier to change how you represent things on the backend than it is to go and teach all the billions of people not currently using the internet how to use it as they start using it.
When you want to ls a dir, do you type
The best solution would be to have the hierarchy imposed, but to have a nice equivalent to the path statement to make it easier for humans to use. Or a nice way of translating between human requests for information, and the "real" location of things.
Humans always think in terms of relativity and relations, not hierarchy. That's why we have $HOME
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
While you make a good point, are the insults necessary?
Shell Scripts? Shell Scripts? We don't NEED no stinking Shell Scripts!
Then I can register hostname.domain.tld
Yeah, I know it isn't funny. Go away.
--Shoeboy
So are you saying we need to add thousands more TLDs to the system so each one is actually relevant to the sites within it?
Would you morons shut *up* already?
I'm seriously considering strongarming ICANN until they make it a requirement of all registrars that it be required for you to *justify* *any* registered second level domain after the first one.
IBM got to ibm.com first.
They are in no danger *whatever*, of trademark dilution or anything else, from Indiana Boron Mining wanting ibm.net.
They just aren't. If this requires the general public to get smarter, then guess fuckin' what? They're just gonna have to get smarter.
Suggesting that people ought to register their brand name in every domain "to protect it" (as Networks Solutions has, in fact, done commercially) is just a millimeter short of Internet treason, and hanging is too good for those who do it.
I wrote a reply to the Department of Commerce that touches on this, three years ago.
I find myself unsurprised that it had little effect. Letting politicians stick their noses into engineering matters will get you into... de mess we is in.
I suppose I should have expected this, though, from someone who refers to a domain name as a "web address".
Cheers,
-- jra
-----
-Superb0wl
-Superb0wl
It's not that I'm lazy....it's that I just don't care.
I have said this before, and I will say it again, no TLD structure will work, unless those with authority over the TLD's and registration processes effectively verify that each registrant is using the TLD per it's definition.
As it stands, the second they open up any new TLD's major corporations and domain squatters will grab up just about everything that is available.
The definations for TLD's were good, but they were never adhered too, and currently I don't see any change to that.
The whole system should now be ripped out, because as with anything else, it has become greedy mongering for www.mycorporation.everything.
The tld's imposed organization ad structure that made sense, but no one had sense enough to stick with it. Granted, that cant really be blamed on any one person or organization as nobody forsaw the explosive persoronl and corporate growth of the internet untill it was already too late. Now it has grown so large that nothing at all is going to be done about TLD misuse ever, as anyone with money will feed their congressperson to oppose it.
Gotta love corporate america.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
So why isn't this even being considered? As far as I can tell, it's because big companies want to be guaranteed that they can get the second-level domain corresponding to their trademarks under ALL existing TLDs. This is ridiculous, and totally unlike the way trademarks act in the real world.
(If I have a trademark on the word "Foo" for my brand of widgets, I can't stop you from using that trademark for an entirely different kind of product, and I certainly can't stop you from using it in conversation, or as a nickname, etc.)
Increasingly, it seems that big-money interests see the digital age as a chance to extend their (government-given) intellectual property rights much much farther than they've ever been before -- taking more and more rights away from the individual.
So sure, allow a
--
Mainly, we all know there is a large enough problem with Cyber-Squatting. Adding another TLD would be like adding another log to the fire. At the same time, are there enough TLD's still left out there to go around for much longer? More TLD's will be added in the future I'm sure, but something like .gnu as great as it sounds, would more likely become a target of ridicule, or an arguing point for those that want TLD's added like .MS or .BSD.
.FND (Foundation), .COL (Collection) or .HAB (Habitat). Something like that is more the direction TLD's should take. Then again, who the hell knows what NSI will do.
Maybe TLD's like
Trying to be different, just like everyone else.
The FSF mandates that to avoid horrable confusion, one should always pronounce the G, as in Guh-New.
We need to return meaning to TLDs!
Congress...., uhmm, I mean ... The U.N. should create an organization that is in charge of making sure each domin under a TLD meet the criteria set for it. I mean it would suck big time to go to sesamestreet.sex and actually find a CTW approved site.
They should get their hands on gnu.net (owned by a kernel developer, I believe) and use it to combat the Microsoft.NET scandal.
gcc.gnu.net -- Download GCC on the Freedom to Software Network! ..in response to Microsoft's repugnant Freedom to Innovate campaign..
I'll go away.
Found this article from Canoe.ca about Japan conferees giving new 'dot-something'
So, can we get something like '.geek' and '.nerd'? Or something like './."?
============
Mathematics will always come back to hunt you down, in so many ways
Your point is moot. It is still possible to register y.z when the email address x@z goes to a valid account.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
This might work:
.com/.net/.org (only one) :) ...
0) an organization (international) is to be created (like united nations) and all current dns information is erased
1) company/organization first has to register a domain from its home country (eg. company.fi)
2) default rule is only one domain per comp./org.
3) products/trademarks cannot be domains
4) if comp./org. has registered itself on multiple countries it can apply for
5) domains cannot be reselled, if this kind of activity is reported the comp./org. loses its domain(s) and cannot register domains for 10 years
6)
- Raynet --> .
I completely agree with what you've said, but regarding the above quoted section, I think we already have that...it's known as gnu.org, and the if the FSF really thinks this is a worthy idea, they should take on the administrative duties themselves and start the naming convention of foo.gnu.org ...but what do I know! ;)
if all software movements got their own tld, we'd all live in an utopian society. heck, let's get a .unx, a .lnx, a .bsd, etc ltd all setup. .edu's?
wait, hasn't that already been done for those of us who really care?
isn't that called nntp groups? remmeber those? wait, try gopher sites? any of those alive yet beyond
just because something is new and "37337" (if i remember the number correctly), does that mean that it is a means for the 'geeks' to get together and use it, or are UUCP addy's truely gone?
hm
Allow anything to be used as a TLD.
HOWEVER, still require registrations to consist of domain name + TLD. i.e., you must still sumbit both parts to constitute a single registration application. The TLD itself cannot be registered to anyone. and remains open for anyone to use.
This would END squatting because it would be impossible for Microsoft, etc. to register all forms of Microsoft.* as doing so would require infinite money.
This also allows same named entities to coexist. Apple Records can have apple.records. Apple computer can have apple.computers. A farmer in WA can have apple.farms. While another company can have foster.farms.
Unownable TLDs also ENDS the "domain brokering" business because specific domains cease to possess any value. If you have foo.com, foo.net, and foo.org, you can demand high $$$ from any foo entities. With infinite TLDs, there's always an alternative choice.
How to implement this from a tech POV? Use the first letter of the TLD to divide up the TLDs among the root servers to balance the load. Subdivide for common letters.
Will ICANN do this? Heck no. Bidding wars over limited domains generates big $$$. And trademark holders like the idea of "buying up all variations of our name so no one else can use it". So between the $$$ and politics, I suppose this sensible suggestion will never happen.
Let me toss out the obligatory media ploy stunt. This has hit all the techie news circles and then the non techies ones like wired. Heh good one he knew it was infeasible
If you think education is expensive, try ignornace
--
- brandspankin.gnu
- out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the.gnu
- spiro-a.gnu
Cheers,IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
...the internet wasn't controlled by corporations and was a tool for universities to better communicate?
.gnu TLD..
i don't know if al gore's going to approve the
-thinkpol
I love this.
How about making the first one free? Then again, this could be easily abused by non-trustworthy people and organizations who would register domains to different "people".
The current domain name system is a mess, and unfortunately it appears that it's going to remain that way unless someone starts their own, non-profit domain name system and provides software and transition tools for it. How are you going to convert the ignorant (m)asses out there who use AOL and can barely figure out how to get to Amazon by typing www.amazon.com? You'll never convert the general public (formerly known as the ignorant (m)asses) to start typing www.amazon.US.books.store or whatever you're suggesting. I know a lot of people who even ignore typing the www. and .com because their browsers will fill it in. Someone out there needs to create a free alternative, and people will begin to switch. We need a transition, not a quick-fix, or we'll completely mess things up.
I've released Hello World under the GPL (I'm not joking, though I was then), so do I get helloworld.gnu? Is a single piece of GPL'd software all it takes? What about the BSDs?
What's to stop Microsoft to release something worthless under the GPL and take Microsoft.gnu? They did produce something under the GPL, and qualify according to your conditions.
It would be interesting to try to explain to someone that http://slashdot.dot is a great site. They'll think you cant speak straight! "no really one of the slashes is a word and only one dot is a period". It'll be great!
.sdrawkcab si gis siht
And then the whole TLD idea went to hell. With every other public entity requesting their own
TLD, the public was left to deal with an more and more confusing url namespace. Not to mention the epic lawsuits for names that for a time captured the media imagination.
After a year or two, the routers came to crawl, the name servers exploded under the increasing complexity and the whole internet idea was sent to rest in the same place public awareness keeps the ham radio and the pigeon carriers.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Don't forget .int (international), the quintessential top-level domain.
Really what they should do is provide hostname entries under gnu.org or fsf.org rather than cluttering up namespace with yet another TLD. There is no need for a .gnu TLD, and the FSF is really showing some audacity to think that they deserve one.
Screw Micro$oft.
Not for me, but to be reserved for everyone, for special local usage.
.here is potentially far more important than .gnu. and should be reserved.
So we can have:
http://here./
http://all.here/
http://whatis.here/
http://whois.here/
http://airconditioner.here/settemp?celsius=25
Or
http://cmdrtaco.here/mindpage/
http://anonymouscoward.here/sendobject/
I believe
Cheerio,
Link.
I still like the idea of a .kid or .kids for a TLD though, but that would be a hell of a battle to set the rules and maintain them. It would be like a globe-wide PTA meeting!
Realistically new TLDs should be something that businesses think appropriate to associate with their business. That's why some of the Country level TLDs are being bastardized. Definitely a .xxx or .sex, maybe a .web. Let's not forget TLDs that might appeal to those outside of North America as well! These are all based on the English language. I'm no linguist but I'm sure there are quite a few possible TLDs that the rest of the world would like to see as well.
Actually, I think that there's an RFC that states that TLDs should be limited to three letters.
Shell Scripts? Shell Scripts? We don't NEED no stinking Shell Scripts!
What ever happened with this story?
Was it just a bluff? A hoax?
Browser? I barely know her!
I agree with everyone that namespace is polluted, but this is clearly not a good solution to the problem. The restrictiveness of .gnu would divide the FS/OSS community, and would not make anything easier. There don't seem to be any problems in this paarticular field right now: everything fits reasonably well in .org, .net, or .com. If people really think a new TLD is necessary, perhaps one for software in general is a better idea.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
The most needed TLD right now is .alt
.alt domain.
that way all the crazy stuff that's not good for "normal healthy americans" can hang out there unmolested.
on top of that we need a law saying you can't sue someone over their
wish
---
If additional TLDs are going to be added, shouldn't they be more 'generic' so everyone can make use of them, not just the OSS community?
I know this is just nitpicking, but if I had to guess, I'd say that RMS wasn't thinking of the OSS community, since he isn't part of it. Free Software, as Stallman defines it, involves a much more specific definition than Open Source(tm).
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Also... weren't you /not/ supposed to have the acronym within it's own definition?
It's what is called a 'recursive acronym'. To quote Stallman:
The name GNU was chosen following a hacker tradition, as a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix."
oh, and your link doesn't work for me. Try this one.
How about just having www.slashdot?
.edu, .gov, and .mil), why not just abandon them altogether? I imagine this would make for some interesting cybersquatting cases, but in the end it would probably just make things a lot easier on everyone (albeit perhaps messier too).
.com/.net/.org and all the foreign TLDs (i.e. .co.uk etc) as well...
It seems TLDs have been so abused as to be virtually worthless (except the aforementioned
This would eliminate the prestige disparity between
Either that or they need to take the TLD distinction seriously and expand and enforce it in such a manner.
just my blog and pix
My first thought was of all the poor programs that already start with gnu:
.god, .gnu, etc etc... I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime.
GnuCash.Gnu
Run Spot Run
But Seriously how many TLDs are we going to propose before we see a single one?
www.icann.cant
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
It's been widely speculated that the reasons .biz and .arts and the other .vapor TLDs never came to pass is because of pressure from business groups who want to ensure the namespace becomes as small as possible to ensuring nobody infringes their copyrights/trademarks/whatever. The more new TLDs we have, the more different variations on their name Disney and the 300 other agressively defensive businesses have to register. (of course, the fact that every corporation simply registers itself in every single TLD defeats the purpose of new TLDs in the first place, but whatever.)
.gnu has a pretty good chance of getting approved. After all, make a TLD in which each group must be certified as open-source, and you neatly throw out the problem of copyright disputes. I mean, orgainize nothing but free/open software and you don't have domains with copyrighted names, because all the projects are copylefted. Hence, no worries for the Men In Suits, who feel reassured by the fact the TLD isn't open to all comers. Hence, no political/monetary "pressure" on ICANN. Hence, nothing bars it, and the OSS people get a TLD.
.gnu TLD may result in some Etoy Vs Etoys type disputes, but in the end the fact is that there will never be a coca-cola.gnu or ford.gnu or a microsoft.gnu-- and no huge corporations feeling "threatened". (silly word to use there, i know..)
.fsf than with .gnu, because .gnu implies less [and avoids the pronunciation problems mentioned in earlier threads..]
If you take it as given that the above paragraph is actually true, then
Now, of course, you could claim that they [the Suited People] would be scared more, because free software people tend to defend their copylefted ground rather fiercely, but you'd be wrong. A
(oh, and on that last note: what if a company does _some_ open source but not _all_? Apple, as part of their Darwin project, has released code under their own APSL but has also given out [or at least is about to give out] some code *cough* *cough* EGCS enhancements *cough* as GPLed (mostly for the purpose of being integrated into an existing GPLed codebase..). Based on this, should apple get an apple.gnu TLD to map to publicsource.apple.com, even though the majority of the software there is not actually GPLed?)
As for "does the FSF deserve a TLD"..? well, hell, they give them to countries, right? I honestly think that the GNU foundation has a bigger impact on geopolitics than Christmas Island.
Unfortunately the whole question becomes very painful when you bring up the question of What About BSD? and What About Qt/KDE? I'd like to hope any TLD made will have a more loose definition of "free" than "the GPL". [i like the LGPL better personally, but that's a flamewar for another day..].. In other words i'd just be a hell of a lot happier with
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
What I think is more important is why should we pay for a domain name... The free software foundation should be more concerned with keeping the net accessable to everyone rather than fitting in with the status quo of "lets add another TOP LEVEL DOMAIN so that ICANN or NET SOL can collect some kind of ridiculous fee..."
No one is gonna like a .gnu domain anyway... is .vaxvms next?... how about .eniac?
What the heck?.....BIOTECH!
TLD's do not necessarily have to be 3 letters long like .com, .net, and .org.
I want my website to be http://www.bguilliams.rocksthehousemonkey.
We must respect evil, and we must make evil respect us.
"ICANN is not considering TLD proposals.... (We) are still considering the policies for considering them,"
I believe it was our fearless leader (Clinton, not CmdrTaco) who said it best - "Well, that depends on what the meaning of the word is is."
Browser? I barely know her!
Question for those in the know: Are the new TLDs that ICANN is working on going to be enforced at all? For example, if there's a .sux domain, and people/corporations start registering subdomains for purposes other than sites about stuff that sucks, will ICANN or anyone else have the means not to grant them that domain?
.com/.org/.net or are they going to be .edu/.gov?
In other words, are the new TLDs going to be
Causation can cause correlation
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-- Slashdot sucks.
Sorry... couldn't resist the minor pun. But seiously... if you make .gnu you have to make a ton more. Also .gnu if used correctly doesn't really help the majority of the world find things. How many people in this world comparitively know what gnu is in the first place. Many many people know what a commercial site is, know what an organization is, know what a network is (mildly at least), know what a government is, etc... if .gnu is added it will just lead to more confusion. It's already hard enough to remember what goes in between the www. and the .com, .org, .net, .gov. If we add .gnu there will inevitably be more TLD's to remember. In my opinion .kids or something to that effect would be beneficial (for filtering purposes (blah!)).
Another thing is that we all know that (i am gonna use microsoft for this arguement) microsoft will register www.microsoft.everything. Frankly I don't blame them because if we have 500 TLD's that are commonly used how can I remember which one it is that I am supposed to go to. It is much more convenient for me if they ALL go to www.microsoft.com. it's just like the whitehouse.com / whitehouse.gov thing. One goes to porn, one goes to the whitehouse. Granted it's obvious but where does whitehouse.* go to? The fewer TLD's the better.
Yes it would be "cool" to have a whole lot to choose from but on the same token it would be very, very confusing. Mainly because I'm to lazy to ever bookmark things so I just remember all the URL's in my head.
so you can tell all your friends to type: "h,t,t,p,colon,slash,slash,slashdot,dot,dot" Man!!! that'd rock man!
.lnx .bsd .sun .win .sco .ibm .dec .amd .sux ...
"...history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." --Ghandi
Anyone should be able to create a TLD, if they can set up a root-level name server for that TLD, prove that they can operate that root-level name server properly, prove that they can provide a 100% reliable connection to that root-level name server, and prove that they have a reasonable potential market for that TLD. (For example, .gnu is probably too narrow for a TLD, while .oss is probably sufficiently broad.)
Each TLD owner (and there should be exactly one owner per TLD) should be required to impose (or not) and enforce restrictions on the nature of owners of domain in their TLD. For example, .com addresses should not be given out to entities not legally registered as corporations, partnerships, proprietorships or the like. This would be more likely if there were one owner per TLD, and they were legally responsible for ensuring that domains they issue conform to the guidelines under which the TLD was created.
The existing TLDs should be destroyed as meaningless, and recreated under the above guidelines. .net would still be useful if limited to organizations which exist to provide network connectivity (ISPs, telecom companies) or services (ASPs, registrars). .com probably needs to be broken into several domains, by either geography or the type of for-profit entity. .edu needs to apply to more than just post-secondary institutions, and probably needs to be broken down geographically.
The number of domains owned by a given entity should be limited.
Each legal entity capable of issuing and enforcing trademarks should have a domain within an appropriate TLD for trademarks. For example, .tm.us for trademarks issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Then you could register etoys.tm.us, and there would be no possibility of confusion with etoy.org.fr. Then, refuse to allow anyone to register domains in the .tm.* domains except for the responsible trademark office.
These changes would, collectively, greatly increase the utility of the namespace in today's environment (as opposed to the pre-commercial environment in which the in-use namespace was conceived) and reduce confusion and lawsuits (as well as cybersquatting, if the limitations on the number of domains was done well). Of course, it will never happen, since it would require a big renaming. Maybe 10 years ago it could have been done, but a second Great Renaming now is probably not possible.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
RMS should register the "g" domain from .nu (http://something.really.nu) fsf.g.nu pretty close to TLD:)
I don't feel this should be made into a TLD. This means that any orgranized group should have their own domain tld. I will state that I have no problem with it as long as every other organization, company, or cult get to make their own TLD. I mean, if I like manage exclusive escorts in the red light district, do I get a .pmp?
futang futang!
Ok, so your nameserver might be a tad slower so what? Why not just http://gnu/, http://slashdot/, http://microsoft/, etc. ? Then the FSF could hand out emacs.gnu, gnome.gnu etc.
For example, I recently saw in 2600 Magazine how Verizon (the result of the Bell Atlantic/GTE merger) registered something like seven hundred domains, all with "Verizon" in them... even insulting ones, like "verizonsucks.com". They had registered all these domains under the .com, .net and .org TLDs. When the 2600 guys couldn't register "verizonsucks.com", they registered "verizonREALLYsucks.com". In response, Verizon sent them a letter informing them of their violation of trademark laws. Read all about it straight from the horse's mouth. (This brings up the point: If Verizon registered "robdumas.com", could that be considered to be fraudulently using my name? I mean, after all, if I can't register a domain with THEIR name, would I/should I let them register a domain with MY name in it?)
Anyway, simply adding a new TLD will just mean that they register there, too.
The only way a .gnu TLD would be worth adding is if we, the Open Source community, somehow controlled it, so we could attempt to keep cybersquatters out, without compromising the freedom of it. Perhaps in order to GET a .gnu domain, you must PRODUCE something under the GNU Public License.
Hey, maybe one day we'll all open up Slashdot to find that Microsoft wants to register "microsoft.gnu"! Ha!
Two final point of interest, somewhat related to this story/thread:
I'm interested to hear what others have to say about the topic. Reply here, or e-mail me.
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Robert Dumas
Why bother getting in a huff about TLDs at all? Why not entirely leave the system in which domain names are mapped to IP addresses via DNS queries? Why not go to a system in which English names are mapped to domain names which are then mapped to IP addresses (or English mapped directly to IP addresses)? Imagine a hash table whos keys are English words and whos values are IP addresses. This would enormously increase the space and get rid of the ridiculous bantering about TLDs, not to mention make it a lot harder for people to cybersquat. BEN
H is actually spelled "Aitch". The reason I know this is because I was watching a spelling bee on ESPN of all channels, and they got to the finals. The poor girl was given the word "H". It was sadly pathetic to watch her ask for it to be used in a sentence, ask it's etamology, etc. So that's how I know how to spell "Aitch."
/. sig used to be "I hate spelling and grammar nazis". Then again, there are two spelling errors in this message, and one paradox.
This is coming from someone who's
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Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?