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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?
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.
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.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
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
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.
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.
"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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?)
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.
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.
No. I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
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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
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.
"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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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..
Not according to the InterNIC's zone file, which is easily downloaded from ftp://rs.internic.net/domain. A summarized version:
; The use of the Data contained in Network Solutions' aggregated .com, .org, and .net top-level domain zone files (including the checksum
;
; files) is subject to the restrictions described in the access Agreement
; with Network Solutions.
ARPA. IN SOA A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. hostmaster.internic.net. (
;End of file.
(snip SOA)
ARPA. 518400 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
(snip 8 root-servers.net entries, B-I in order of H, C, G, F, B, I, E, D)
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 518400 IN A 198.41.0.4
(snip the above root-servers.net entries' IP addresses)
IN-ADDR.ARPA. 172800 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
(snip again, same order)
So there are no sites under .arpa, just in-addr :)
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Then I can register hostname.domain.tld
Yeah, I know it isn't funny. Go away.
--Shoeboy
-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
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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.
- brandspankin.gnu
- out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the.gnu
- spiro-a.gnu
Cheers,IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
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.
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
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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
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-- Slashdot sucks.
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