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After Years of Serving X11, X.Org Stands To Lose Its One-Letter Domain (phoronix.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-set-up-a-notification-to-renew-your-domain dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The X.Org domain predates the X.Org Foundation. It was used in the '90s as a destination by The Open Group around the X Window System. While many are expecting Mir and Wayland to eventually succeed the X.Org Server, it seems the X.Org/X11 Server may outlive the valuable domain. Thanks to poor management by the X.Org Foundation, they risk losing access to their one-letter domain. Procrastination, paired with not transferring the domain when forming the non-profit foundation, has led to a last-minute mess. They left the domain registered for years to a person who is no longer involved with X.Org — and doesn't want to relinquish it. In the few days until the domain expires, they are hoping for a "Hail Mary." Let this be a lesson for open-source projects to better manage their assets.

79 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    Maybe buying x11.org would be cheaper.

  2. It's not just open source projects by forgottenusername · · Score: 5, Informative

    We almost lost our production domain. The original dummkopf who set things up registered it all under his own name and individual email instead of using a role based account. He then was fired for unrelated incompetence. Fast forward to the domain renewal coming up.. charge went to his personal CC.. he disputed the charges.. we would have lost it except by pure dumb luck I was in the middle of a DNS migration project and was auditing/cleaning up the registrar details. It was as last minute as you'd want; expiration was within 12h.

    One of my pet peeves - people who register for services or get licenses tied to their individual accounts.

    1. Re:It's not just open source projects by ickleberry · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Used to work for a hosting company and seen it happen all the time. With actual malicious intent a lot of the time - two guys start a business and one of them runs away, has the domain in his name and starts sending mails to the guy still running the business saying "~haha~ you can't have the domain!!". Other times the guy running the business just has a falling out with his IT guy. Real childish carry on, you'd think these guys were old and wise enough not to carry on like this.

      Another time we had this 18 y/o guy who made sites for people and the domains were registered to his account but not under his name - the fool threatened to take the site down and keep the domain if she wouldn't go out with him

    2. Re:It's not just open source projects by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The challenge is that a number of companies don't have the notion of role based accounts, so when you are faced with registering something of the sorts, it is a challenge trying to work out the best way to do this, without tying the account to a transient entity (any employee or physical resource is transient).

      Companies that don't have the notion of aliased accounts or special account types for this purpose are just asking for issues.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    3. Re:It's not just open source projects by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      get licenses tied to their individual accounts

      This is a partly corporate accounting problem, every time I have been given permission to buy software on behalf of a company they have asked me to do it with my CC and put in an expense claim. It's always the responsibility of the project/department head to manage license compliance/renewals, sucks to be them if they don't keep the license/renewal details I give them. Keeping a domain name you registered in good faith on behalf of someone else is just being a dick.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    4. Re:It's not just open source projects by Dartz-IRL · · Score: 1

      Did that in work to pay for a bit of software for the company website, since the vendor used paypal and the company credit account already had a paypal account associated with it - which was innaccessible for *reason that doesn't matter*.

      Didn't realise the plugin would be tied to my personal email until after buying the bloody thing.

      --
      So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
    5. Re:It's not just open source projects by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If said person was a founding member with an actual stake in the company, I wouldn't be too hard on them. I was part of a start-up and in the beginning it's all about making a profit and taking whatever shortcuts you can. If you get caught up in doing things "proper" and planning for when you have hundreds or thousands of employees you're probably not going to get there. Early Microsoft was hardly perfect but Gates ran with it. Early Oracle was hardly perfect but Ellison ran with it. Early Facebook was hardly perfect but Zuckerberg ran with it. Worrying too much about growth pains means you lose sight of the growth being the hard part and the pains the easy part. If you're just "an employee" and do things with your personal accounts then yeah, you deserve what's coming to you.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    6. Re:It's not just open source projects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You call him a "dummkopf", but I know several cases where some "dummkopf" was the reason why a domain existed at all and not just some third party lock-in URL, and despite several attempts to transfer the domains to a role account, the projects would have sooner let the domains expire than take responsibility of them. It's always a mixture of not caring about things that seem to take care of themselves (thanks to the "dummkopf" paying out of his own pocket) and organizational red tape which makes these things more of a chore than they need to be. The people who make the bureaucracy bearable always get shafted: Nobody thanks them and in the end they're the "dummkopf".

    7. Re:It's not just open source projects by forgottenusername · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I guess. Lately I think the real difference between a seasoned engineer and a "senior" engineer is just taking that extra 10% of time to do things vaguely sensibly up front. There is no such thing as temporary. At the least, set things up so refactoring them later doesn't require a total redo.

      This guy in particular was just in way over his head but one of those sorts who is paranoid about admitting that or asking for help. In fact he was hostile to help. Not really part of my original point but he'd do stuff like;

      - ignored my advice to not tie production services into corporate domain (if you ever get sold/acquired etc, you understand)
      - ignored my advice to not create a "split domain" with the corporate domain (eg the windows domain was companyname.com, the windows dns servers thought they were SOAs but that same domain had actual internet resolvers with different records)
      - refused to entertain the notion that linux was production ready (this was in 2009) and forced solaris as a standard. On x86. As vmware VMs.
      - refused to take any help or assistance in installing the base OS despite being a windows guy with zero unix knowledge. We ended up with stuff like DB servers that had 2x swap as ram.. and they had 128G ram..
      - For some odd reason was very hostile to the notion of service/host monitoring.. like.. not just against nagios but _anything_

      The list goes on and on.

      He was just really promoted way above his experience level as happens in startups; they hired me probably 8 months after him, when production databases had been wiped and backups hadn't been successful for months (back to the no monitoring thing).

      It took a bunch of years to fully undo all the crap he had put in place. I danced a jig when I closed the lights on the datacenter he had built (we migrated). Did I mention in that datacenter, he setup "redundant" switches and firewalls for the servers.. but had all the internet drops coming down into one single unmanaged 1G cheapie netgear entry level switch?

      If he had allowed me to help I bet he'd still be working there. I have no problems mentoring people as long as they're not asshats. Last I heard he was in law school after a stint in real estate..

    8. Re:It's not just open source projects by Solandri · · Score: 1

      Companies that don't have the notion of aliased accounts or special account types for this purpose are just asking for issues.

      And how exactly is a company supposed to make an aliased email account to register its domain, if it doesn't yet own its own domain?

      A lot of us older IT folk were forced to register the company's domain in our name using our personal funds because our managers were clueless about the Internet at the time. It was either spend (waste) dozens of hours over several weeks or months trying to explain the importance of a domain to them, during which time someone else or even a competitor could grab the domain. Or pay $5-$7 out of pocket and grab the domain immediately, and deal with reimbursement later.

    9. Re: It's not just open source projects by TWX · · Score: 2

      The IT director, CIO, CTO, Network Supervisor, Director of Business Services, or any other of a number of people should be in-charge of things like that. That's the difference between the administrative contact and the technical contact, the network engineer might be the technical contact and be in a position to perform the technical changes needed for DNS, but the boss' job should be to pay for the domain and handle business-related queries and functions.

      Arguably that same person should be responsible for the calendar for the certificates too. That stuff is too important to leave to a low-level functionary, even if that low-level functionary ultimately uses the certs technically once they're obtained.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    10. Re:It's not just open source projects by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Well, the answer is you list multiple contacts on the domain registration.

      ONE of the contacts' e-mail address should be on a domain that is NOT the same as the domain being registered; However, the E-mail account should be documented, owned and controlled by the company.

    11. Re:It's not just open source projects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You have never worked for a small company have you?

    12. Re:It's not just open source projects by Sarten-X · · Score: 2

      Is this the new troll line now? No more "you fail it" or "moo"? I've seen comments about "corporations are people" on a few recent articles, and it never quite seems to fit...

      On another note, yes, this is part of why the notion of corporate personhood exists. Corporations are able to enter into contracts as legal entities separate from the individual people involved, so the individual's circumstances do not affect the contract's legality. That also means corporations need a measure of free expression, so they can choose to do business with whom they want. They also then must have an ability to contribute financially to politics, because to curb that would interfere with the aforementioned free expression.

      The problem is that not all jurisdictions allow corporate personhood, and it is still legal to discriminate against corporate entities. If a registrar does not want to enter into a business agreement with a corporation simply because they're not a human person, the registrar has the right (per free expression as noted above) to reject the business. Per the registrar's contract with ICANN, they may actually be required to deal only with individuals.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    13. Re:It's not just open source projects by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

      Used to work for a hosting company and seen it happen all the time. With actual malicious intent a lot of the time - two guys start a business and one of them runs away, has the domain in his name and starts sending mails to the guy still running the business saying "~haha~ you can't have the domain!!". Other times the guy running the business just has a falling out with his IT guy. Real childish carry on, you'd think these guys were old and wise enough not to carry on like this.

      Another time we had this 18 y/o guy who made sites for people and the domains were registered to his account but not under his name - the fool threatened to take the site down and keep the domain if she wouldn't go out with him

      You know what makes them grow up real fast? An injunction from a court of law.

    14. Re:It's not just open source projects by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      Even worse are vendors that forbid and actively try to prevent the use of generic accounts. bobsmith@ is quite a busy guy. He's the contact for like 6 companies.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    15. Re:It's not just open source projects by timelorde · · Score: 1

      We tried to hire him, but had to settle for Pete Moss.

    16. Re:It's not just open source projects by KGIII · · Score: 2

      You know, I want to say you're full of shit and making that whole thing up BUT, sadly, I've read Slashdot (and seen enough of your posts) to the point where that doesn't even really surprise me any more and I completely believe you. I am so glad that I owned the business and that we got started as early as we did but, more importantly, I'm so friggen happy that I sold and got out when I did.

      This sort of stuff is just mind boggling. I don't even understand how that happens. The very first thing I did when I started was find smart people to help. Not just people who said they were smart but people that were actually smart. No, I couldn't have paid them in shares in the company nor would I have tried to. I got a tiny grant and ate Ramen noodles. (That and we had a rather nice contract coming in but if we'd failed to meet the goals in that contract, the penalties would have bankrupted me for life.)

      How does that sort of shit even happen? Who the hell promoted this person? Why? Being there for a longer period than others is grounds for a raise - not a fucking promotion that you're unqualified for... I had a secretary who was with us since not long after the beginning. She was there longer than some of the programmers and there before we even had a DB admin. Maybe I should have promoted her to be a server admin?

      Is that company still in business? Did they learn anything from this?

      Me? I learned to hire smart people, reward them well, give them clear tasks, give them the tools they ask for, ask questions when I do not know, know when I do not know, and to get the hell out of the way so that they can do the job that I hired them to do. It was a little different for us. There weren't a whole bunch of traffic engineers that were into computers and exactly zero of them were fluent in modeling and working with data sets that large (it's actually like modeling a chaotic system with very large data sets). There were some transportation engineers but most of them worked in fleet management or with trains, ships, or planes - not exactly what I was needing. Then, finding someone who could be trained in one aspect or the other was hard.

      Hell, I actually went so far, at one point, that I funded some research at a local university and poached the students and research assistants. I stole almost all of my tech employees. I had to. Sadly, I look at what a transportation engineer makes now and it's something like 80k as an average, when you get a few years under your belt, and I was paying them around $120k back in the 1990s. Of course, there are all sorts of companies that do it now. I did look out for the people who worked with me (not for, with) when I sold but most of them still work for the now parent company. I know damned well some of them can easily have retired quite some time ago.

      Ah well... I've typed you a long enough novella. I just figured I'd ask if you had any more information or insight as well as share some alternative results. I'm really baffled at how these companies manage to stay open. I don't get it. Hell, my worst mistake was trying to micromanage and still trying to do a lot of the programming - even after I'd hired professionals. It took me a little bit to realize that doing so was stupid and it took a few comments from them to make me understand what they needed - even if they couldn't vocalize it properly. I hired them because I could not. Oddly, it took me a little while to put my ego aside and think it through. Fortunately, they were very good at their jobs and I made sure they were well compensated for their work. It's shameful that traffic engineers earn as little as they do now but, I guess, it is quite a bit easier now. Ho hum...

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    17. Re:It's not just open source projects by forgottenusername · · Score: 1

      > How does that sort of shit even happen? Who the hell promoted this person? Why?

      A lot of the problem is the business side almost always knows nothing about the tech side or (bigger problem) who to trust and who is full of it. They're generally the sorts who can barely keep their own workstation under control. So you run into a few problems.

      1) There's a shortage of qualified tech people who have been around long enough to avoid some of the common problems
      2) The people ultimately responsible for hiring and business continuity don't know the difference between a good techie and someone who just fabricated most of their resume
      3) Incompetent people tend to prefer to hire other incompetent people
      4) Qualified people with experience can usually sniff out the hellholes during the interview process and GTFO

      Specific to this company, they had extremely weak management. They had a profitable product that required very little actual engineering.. it was a mobile service but the app actually was self contained on the handset.. the only reason they hit our webservice was for billing and account related activities.

      They hired the clown via contract from a consulting company to be their Windows/IT guy. Then their service was expanded to multiple carriers and they needed a real datacenter; because this guy was already there, they asked him if he had the ability to build out the DC. So suddenly this low tier windows guy has an opportunity to be an ops/infrastructure manager and add all sorts of fun stuff to his resume; he jumped on it. None of the people had any grownup level ops experience to evaluate his skillset or vet his plans/ideas.

      After they had the DB meltdown I mentioned earlier they realized they needed a real ops person. The startup I was at was dying and a friend I worked with before (a business analyst SQL person) suggested me. They also wanted to put their product in teh clowdz; this was 2008-2009, the startup I was at was a pretty early AWS pioneer. (Pre-EBS, pre-ELB.. it was the wild west!).

      Anyway I got in and it was a mess, I fought to help them clean stuff up and to avoid problems before they happened. The devs appreciated my efforts but due to the aforementioned weak management, the monkey dude was actually technically a manager? and I was just an engineer? Or something. So while technically I was "in charge" of production he still kept his claws in enough that he'd fight with me over every decision. I finally gave up and got a new gig when it became clear the situation wasn't going to change. Basically it came down to - I'm used to cleaning up peoples messes but I'm not going to fight for the right to clean up other peoples messes.

      Ironically when I put in notice they actually offered to fire that dude on the spot if I'd stay. That made me doubly sure I made the right decision to leave; you should never put an employee in that situation to make that kinda choice. He was let go ~ 3 months later after they hired a replacement for me (they actually paid me contract to interview people for them). They're still around (and profitable!) despite themselves; most of the original people are gone due to a series of acquisitions.

      Anyway I have a bunch of stories.. I've been doing internet startups for the last 18ish years. I like some aspects of them but sometimes I go park at a big company for a while to recharge. Maybe someday I'll write a book. I actually collect some of the funnier/more absurd stuff that goes on at the various companies. Mostly for my own personal amusement (and because other people wouldn't believe it otherwise). I anonymize them though.

      A lot of the kids coming into syseng/devops/dev aren't necessarily bad, they just are inexperienced and have to learn the same lessons. That's the part that wears on me sometimes.. but if people are willing to take advice/mentoring from old timers(heh.. not even 40) then it's all good.

      There has been a few times in my career I worked with lots of smart people (smarter than me) and it was a blast. Unfortunately that never seems to last all that long.

    18. Re:It's not just open source projects by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      The phrase "Zero unix knowledge" is the key one...
      Most getting started with unix guides seem to recommend swap as 2x ram, and these generally date from the days when you might have 16mb of ram and be trying out linux for the first time on a spare machine.
      For a large server 2x ram isn't always appropriate, and you should use your experience to decide the appropriate swap size given the specs and purpose of the host.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    19. Re:It's not just open source projects by ruir · · Score: 1

      Sadly, I have seen it happen too. I had to be flown over to a sister company in another country with the same ERP software of us, after a major snafu (newspapers and all) to automate some processes that were already automated in our side. The process was being done by 6 people by hand who had no whatsoever interests in that it worked well, because they were deceiving my counterpart, and running a business on the side. Never understood why the resident guy did not take my help , insisted in developing his software that never materialised, and never took my offer to us the software I developed. Needless to say, he was let go. To be fair with the guy, he just had another set of priorities, was more into politics and customers handling, and should not be working without another senior IT guy.

    20. Re:It's not just open source projects by ruir · · Score: 1

      (slashdot could use a 1 minute edit-window. I hate seeing english mistakes and not being able to edit the message)

    21. Re:It's not just open source projects by peragrin · · Score: 1

      You missed a vital clue.

      especially in companies that are just starting up cash flow is a big friggin deal.

      The cheapest solution no matter how badly conceived is always the best solution as long as it is functional.

      This is the difference between tech guys and business guys. business guys always think about the money and cash flow first. We have $X,XXX dollars we need something that can do HHHHH. to do HHHH properly will cost $XX,XXX. yea but we can't afford that so we have to make do with this.

      remember just about every business robs peter to pay their debt to paul. it is about the cash flow. once you get that incoming and stable you can do things the right way.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    22. Re:It's not just open source projects by Ken+D · · Score: 1

      or a big one either apparently.

      Last time I worked for a Fortune 500 company you could not get a PO for anything that cost less than a certain dollar amount (limit depended upon the type of purchase, i.e. software versus hardware, capital vs non-capital expense). Everything under the limit needed to be handled as a reimbursement.

    23. Re:It's not just open source projects by forgottenusername · · Score: 1

      It's a good point but following some sort of vaguely sensible process and best practices (as nebulous as that can be) doesn't cost any money. Like, it doesn't cost any money to create role based accounts for service/license management, bring up systems in a clean repeatable way, implement monitoring etc. Most of my career has been around open source software which is free licensing fee-wise. I think you need qualified engineers regardless if it's OSS or not so the argument of "we need vendor support!" never really flies for me, outside of hardware which does fail.

      The purchasing stuff I agree is a big minefield. I think the best we can do as engineers is give them the whole picture. Present the options, the risks, and let them choose. Be as clear as possible and get them sign off on the risks if they choose crappy solutions to save money. Then you can hold them accountable when stuff melts down the way you said it would. If you're lucky, over time you can develop a reasonable working relationship with the business side of the house and there can be mutual trust. Makes life much easier. It's easy to see certain groups as "the enemy" (I'm certainly guilty, depending on which hat I'm wearing on that particular day) but the truth is Hanlon's Razor is a real thing and most people want to at least do a reasonably decent job. Most of the real problems are people related not technology. Sometimes a simple "hey, we're going back and forth on this a lot; I don't fully understand where you're coming from. Want to grab a coffee and you can explain it?" goes a long way.. vs "they're dumb/bad/the enemy and I will 'win' this battle". Hell, they might even be bad but you still gotta find some way to work it out; massive hostility doesn't make for enjoyable workplaces or lives - considering how much time is spent working.

    24. Re:It's not just open source projects by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I'm imagining myself way over my head in a new job I wanted to keep, and being a bit less scrupulous. I can easily see myself doing things like that. Bringing competent people in would make it obvious I wasn't, and shouldn't be paid at that level. I'd be frantically learning, and I'd miss a lot of things (like exactly what redundant network connections mean).

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    25. Re:It's not just open source projects by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Hmm... I'd not thought of that. I dunno though... LOL You're kind of old and have a moral compass now. ;-) It'd probably have to be a job you /really/ wanted. I'm going to pretend you'd never do such a thing.

      I guess I'm just not creative enough because, sadly, that never crossed my mind. Yet, I bet it'd work in a number of places. It's like the adage about the two guys out bear hunting. I don't have to outrun the angry bear, I only have to outrun you.

      Then again, I did lay out a decent plan for how BBC would be an excellent tool for propaganda and the fact that they published stories that were critical of the government did not, in any way, indicate that they weren't actually propaganda. I even went so far as to postulate that the person professing such was capable of being entirely duped by someone who was clever enough. I mean, sure, if the media is critical of *some* government then they must be truly independent, right? No, not really. In fact, if I were running a propaganda media outlet one of the things I'd insist on was that the media was appropriately critical of certain things - I'd even act on those things to show people that they had a kind, attentive, and proactive government.

      Now, I don't really believe that the BBC is actually a propaganda piece (entirely, at least) but I know they have been used for exactly that and have a history of doing quite well at it (though it's hard to truly measure). So, maybe I do have a little creativity in me.

      But no, no... I'd have not thought of that. You're an evil man, Mr. Thornley. Or, more accurately, you could be. And yes, yes I could see that working in certain environments. I could actually see it working well in certain areas of the military. I've worked for many different businesses and many different municipalities but I've never really been much of a direct employee and never been part of the structure. Some things are a bit odd for me. Not just odd, they're startling. I went from school to the military, to school, to the military, to school, to opening my own business. Sure, I had a few small jobs here and there between some of those things but no real experience in corporate culture. I can imagine that it must be frustrating at times. I live vicariously through this folks on this site and The Daily WTF. Also, Dilbert.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    26. Re:It's not just open source projects by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty good at thinking of evil things, and I like putting myself into situations so I can understand what likely goes through evildoers' minds, but I'm not sure I could actually be evil in that way.

      One of the things I like here is there's a lot of diversity in experience and thinking.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  3. I feel like I'm missing something here... by dslauson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, the guy whose name is currently on the registration (Leon Shiman, from what I've gathered) doesn't want to turn over the domain, but also isn't going to renew it? Is he being uncooperative on purpose? I know he hasn't been involved for years, but is he being antagonistic, or can they just not get hold of him, or what? It seems like this should be relatively simple to clear up, so what am I missing?

    1. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by Volanin · · Score: 4, Informative

      The synopsis is misleading. There is nothing like this in the article. It mentions that Leon Shiman is the current registered owner, but everything else is being kept private for the moment. He being uncooperative is just as likely as he being unreachable for contact for some reason. We'll find out in the next 11 days.

      --
      If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
      If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
    2. Re: I feel like I'm missing something here... by n0creativity · · Score: 1

      This. TFA doesn't give any of the soap opera juicy bits. Is he asking for money? Can they not find him? I work for a nonprofit and the 'genius' who purchased all of our domains originally used a personal Gmail account as opposed to a corporate account. It was a nightmare to clean up and took me a good 3 months to coordinate it all. My org had him on retainer in case I needed his help when I first came in. I used this and many similar (and some significantly worse ) examples to get them to drop the contract.

    3. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by mysidia · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah.... I don't understand. You do not need a registrant's consent to pay for a domain renewal.

      One of their fans should just pay the bill on his behalf.

      Also, unless they have gone out of their way to set a registry-level lock on the domain clientRenewProhibited, then most likely ANY domain registrar could technically send an EPP request to renew the domain for 1yr, and just pay the bill.

    4. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Here's the current locks:
      Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
      Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
      Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited

    5. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Funny

      We'll find out in the next 11 days

      You mean x11 days. Ba-da-bing!

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    6. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, someone's just trying to make drama where there isn't much. Shiman's using his own email for the contact email, and possibly his own personal phone numbers, but the registrant name is "X.ORG Foundation, LLC". Probably all it is is X.org doesn't have the credentials for the registrar account to manage the domain themselves, so they'll need to jump through the hoops with NetSol to prove they're really X.org and get the domain moved to their account. A copy of the letters of incorporation should do the trick, and accompanying it with payment should get NetSol to extend the registration while this is being cleared up.

      Part of this I blame on the registrars who don't make it obvious how to set up a domain so that several registrar accounts can manage/access it, or who don't provide a way to register a domain with a new account owning it and yours just being assigned to manage it.

    7. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by zyklone · · Score: 2

      That's how we did it back in the olden days around here.
      This was a fun day when Microsoft let passport.com expire, luckily some slashdoter renewed it for them.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20140921073357/http://slashdot.org/articles/99/12/25/114201_F.shtml#40

    8. Re: I feel like I'm missing something here... by TheReaperD · · Score: 2

      Sounds like he's been out of the project for a while and no one, including the registar, has his current contact information. It's probably why they're publishing the story. They're hoping he'll see the story and contact them.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    9. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have seen this before with other open source projects. Members of the project who are developing suddenly get very paranoid of the guy who has been footing the bill for their domain or services. Even if the guy has been trustworthy and a friend of theirs for years and it has been genuinely helping the project. Something happens, like a renewal is filed at the very last minute or they receive threats from an outside party to hijack their domain. Sometimes nothing happened to trigger it.

      Usually, the threats are unfounded, but paranoia and name calling sets in. People accuse the fella paying the domain host, or they're rude to him. Then some random member just demands he hand over the domain. He doesn't know if he can trust that person to handle it properly, or they aren't willing to pay for the control because let us face it they're pinko communists. This creates a lot of contention between the members and their benefactor. It recently happened at cyanogen, they're even threatening to sue the guy even though he handed over everything.

      And, this psychological effect seems to extend beyond just domain control, for example Mozilla biting the hands that feeds them i.e. Google. They were being given something like roughly 80 million every year for making a free browser, and then they were telling people to switch to Bing and refusing to support Google video or image standards. Google kept funding them until recently, even though Mozilla held such contempt for them.

      Many other examples exist I'm sure.

    10. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's how we did it back in the olden days around here.
      This was a fun day when Microsoft let passport.com expire, luckily some slashdoter renewed it for them.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20140921073357/http://slashdot.org/articles/99/12/25/114201_F.shtml#40

      Yeah, I'm standing by just in case.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
    11. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      I have seen this before with other open source projects. Members of the project who are developing suddenly get very paranoid of the guy who has been footing the bill for their domain or services.

      There is some truth to what you're saying, just like there is some truth about the other side as well.

      Some people make it a point to get a domain name under their own personal name, and personal credit card, even when asked not to do so initially by the leaders of the project. After all, among developers (and outside of university students who can be broke), people in Technology can usually afford the domain name registration fees, so this action is really not about money. It's usually about control.

      During the start of an open source project, it isn't always clear who is going to be the top contributor, and it isn't even clear if the project is going to be successful at all. But you can often see people jockeying for position, and one of the ways that gets done is through domain name registration.

      And whether that initial registration is done with benevolence in mind, or less than a benevolent intent. You can be sure that if I had been the one in the control of the cyanogen related domain name, I would have been dismayed by the one-sided partnership deal with Microsoft and I would have looked in to cash in on that partnership as well (or had I been more idealistic, I would have probably directed my domain name elsewhere as a form of protest). After all, if the leadership of Cyanogen was willing to ignore the pleas of 99% of its early adopters and sell out to Microsoft and install Bing, Outlook, Office, etc by default on all its ROMs in exchange for a sizable mountain of cash. Why shouldn't I do the same? After all, it was my domain name (hypothetically speaking). I loaned it out as long as the organization/company was heading in the direction I wanted them to, but why should I suddenly surrender my domain name at just about the time the company is going into a completely different direction?

      That is to say. Cyanogen should consider itself lucky I wasn't the one with that domain name (or worse yet, someone idealistic like RMS with that domain), or the end result would have been much more costly for Cyanogen.

    12. Re: I feel like I'm missing something here... by nullchar · · Score: 1

      It's only possible for the current registrar to renew the domain over EPP. However, .org domains auto renew at the registry, so the registrar must send an explicit DomainDelete command within the renewal grace period (about 30 days after expiration). Most likely if the registrant fails to renew within that period, they will sell/auction the domain instead of deleting it.

    13. Re:I feel like I'm missing something here... by warich · · Score: 1

      I tip my hat to you sir.

  4. whois by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The whois, though showing leon's email, looks to have the XOrg foundation as the registrant, tech, and admin name.
    Surely that's enough for network solutions to say that it's clearly the intent that it's the XOrg foundation that owns it rather than the individual?

    1. Re:whois by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Hey now, don't let the facts get in the way of trying to create a juicy drama.

  5. Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, he's listed as a contact but it's registered to "X.ORG Foundation, LLC". They just need to contact networksolutions. tell them the sob story and jump through the hoops (they may need to show incorporation docs) to prove they are actually the X.ORG Foundation. I've successfully done this for a client in the past. Maybe times have changed since then.

    1. Re:Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As explained in TFA, ""The domain is currently registered in the name of X.Org Foundation LLC, which the foundation dissolved when forming the 501(c)3 organization."

    2. Re:Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It may seem counter intuitive but a dissolved organization still exists, at some level, so that it can take care of business such as this.

    3. Re:Big deal by Dredd13 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Having been through a similar rodeo, it's just a matter of showing a different set of paperwork that shows "when orgA dissolved, all of its assets were transferred legally to orgB", at which point any representative of orgB has the same power over it because it's a transferred asset which just hasn't had some paperwork corrected at the registrar.

    4. Re:Big deal by borcharc · · Score: 1

      Whatever the name of the 501(c)3 is, is not the successor in interest to X.Org Foundation LLC. This is a trivially simple matter to resolve that exists all over corporate law.

    5. Re:Big deal by rajugo · · Score: 1

      yes for each and every change in registration or change in registration have to tell a lob lob story and then give the necessary doc to them fro the change. this is my company where i found some troubles like this and shifted to blogger. http://www.realestategroupsrev...

    6. Re:Big deal by Swampash · · Score: 1

      They just need to contact networksolutions

      ahhahahahahahahhhhaaaaahahaaaaaaahahaha

  6. Not always incompetent or malicious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm seeing a lot of comments along the lines of "ah stupid morons, so incompetent to register a client domain using your personal credentials" which tells me these people have not worked a lot in the real world.
     
    I can think of 5 separate occasions where I saw that the CEO, CTO, COO, CO-whoever is in charge couldn't be bothered to come up with the correct credentials or a company account to set up a simple domain for their clients. These aren't mom-and-pop shops-- major ad agencies do this all the time, movie and media companies are slightly better.
     
    Out of desperation, either you set it up yourself, or it doesn't get done and you get fired. Explaining the legality, fragility, and idiocy of this to the people in charge of credentials is pointless-- all they hear is "blah blah blah I won't do what you want me to do"
     
    One place I worked at EVERY TWO YEARS there was a major scramble to get a long-departed tech guy to renew a domain. Each time this happened, the day always finished thusly:"OK, let's never do that again. Give me company credentials and a billing account and I'll set this up to auto-renew".
    "Sure, send me an email about it tomorrow, I gotta go play some golf".

  7. Re: Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Is sexconker having a bad fur day?

  8. Is xxx.org still available? by ffkom · · Score: 1

    Using that instead would certainly boost the number of visitors by a magnitude... ;-)

    1. Re:Is xxx.org still available? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      Using that instead would certainly boost the number of visitors by a magnitude... ;-)

      Or, more appropriately: xxxxxxxxxxx.org

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  9. Re:Good by epyT-R · · Score: 1

    illoyalty? Is that some new newspeak word that hasn't made circulation yet?

  10. Re:Good by Wootery · · Score: 1

    What? x12.org is an established website. Why make up something like that?

  11. Who cares? by Mondragon · · Score: 1

    1998 wants its' concern over "cool" TLDs back.

    Sure, it's an organization pain for a minor number of services, but it's hardly a travesty that warrants any coverage.

    1. Re:Who cares? by phmadore · · Score: 1

      Fair point. X.computer would be more applicable to them now, anyway, but you're right: domains don't mean nearly what they used to thanks to search engines.

  12. Re:Good by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1

    I already bought X12.org

    see you there :)

    Can I advertise my new soft drink, 8 Up, on your website?

  13. Re:Good by mysidia · · Score: 1

    I was about to ask what the difference between Illoyalty and Disloyalty is.

    Do they have a word for someone who pretends to be loyal, and then later abandons their loyalty and does something horrible?

    Oh wait.... that's Treason isn't it?

  14. Re:huh, this is weird by dfsmith · · Score: 1

    Well, the IRS says the EIN was revoked (for non-filing of the 990) on May 15 2012. The Letter of Determination on X.org's site shows standing on May 17 2012 (and still current).)

    Guidestar is often slow at finding 990s. If The Foundation filed its first return as the new 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) in Feb 2014 (extensions after first FY?) it may still be working its way through the system.

    Still, the revocation is unusual, and cause for a second look.

  15. One letter domain names by weave · · Score: 2

    So if isn't registered, would it become unavailable for someone else to grab? Most other one letter com, orgs, and nets are reserved. Only a few are grandfathered in, like x.org.

  16. Re:Seems to belong to X.ORG Foundation by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

    Yawn should take all of faxing in on company letterhead to change to email.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
  17. Re:Good by QRDeNameland · · Score: 1, Informative

    should be doubleplusunloyal

    --
    Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
  18. Re:Good by msauve · · Score: 1

    x11, x12. Whatever it takes.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  19. Re:Good by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

    XXX.orgy

  20. Re:Good by dejitaru · · Score: 1

    or x.xxx?

  21. I don't get it. by aix+tom · · Score: 1

    According to the article the x.org domain was registered to X.Org Foundation LLC, which got dissolved when the 501(c)3 organization was created.

    But some organisation (presumably the 501(c)3 organization) must be the legal successor to the Foundation LLC. If they are not able to get the registration renewed just because the PERSON who wound up in the administrative/registration contacts doesn't approve it, then any employee that is in that contacts for any company could hold the companies domain registration hostage. If it where that easy it would happen all the time when a disgruntled admit is fed up with management.

  22. Re:Good by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

    Notice what the registrant email says in what you posted.

  23. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Wow this thread is humourless. Between this guy and the guy complaining about X12, we might as well just outlaw all comedians.

  24. Re:Good by davester666 · · Score: 1

    Hah.

    I've already registered

    XInfinityInfinitiesPlusOne.org

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  25. Re:Good by davester666 · · Score: 1

    Well, I ate at a Holiday Inn.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  26. Re:Good by ruir · · Score: 1

    It seems a matter of serving official papers with the firm registration changing the contact email...cannot get it.

  27. Re:Good by ray-auch · · Score: 1

    I think the problem is that X.ORG Foundation, LLC no longer actually exists. They need a legal trail to show that the current foundation is the legal successor in interest, which they haven't got. Possibly they messed up the legals somewhere along the way so they are not in fact successor in interest and title to the domain was never transferred. In which case the domain is not, in fact, theirs.

  28. Re:Good by Swampash · · Score: 1

    this course of action is called illoyality, a very damning evidence of someone who should be shunned at all areas.

    i am truley sorry for your lots

  29. Re:Good by hduff · · Score: 1

    If this "person" was involved with X.org, and then just decided to keep the domain to himself, this course of action is called illoyality, a very damning evidence of someone who should be shunned at all areas.

    ‘Illoyalty’ has been looked up 658 times on woktionary, is no one's favorite word yet, is on no lists yet, has no comments yet, and is not a valid Scrabble word.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  30. Re:Seems to belong to X.ORG Foundation by KingRatMass · · Score: 1

    The joke is on you... and everyone else. If you do a Google Street Map view of that address, all you get is a numberde wooded lot on a residential street. Which is supposedly also the home of Shiman Associates. Leon Shiman is probably some junkie from Cambridge that crashes on that empty lot.

  31. Re:Good by hucker75 · · Score: 1

    You can't be sued for a different name. People get away with different SPELLINGS nevermind a different number. Get your libellous-attitude sue-everyone nonsense back inside your screwed up head please.