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Tucows Opens Domain Name Registry
Tucows.com is still working on the site, but their
Open Shared Registration System
should be ready to go by November15. There's an API to proxy through their accredited server into the domain name database. Anyone can write their own client software based on theirs, which is GPLed. Their take is $13/year, easily the lowest yet: the idea is for others to customize their own client software, add value, resell domains, and start the price war.
Unlike a lot of domain resale programs, this is not an extra fee that is tacked on top of NSI's $70 reg fee.
-RWR, OpenSRS Maintainer
"Although we may build the technology that we define as tools, we must be vigilant that those tools do not define us."
domains can be transferred from NSI. register.com will do this, at cost of $70 of course. this would allow one to do it at a minimum.
It's good to see the Open Source paradigm come to the bitter and twisted world of domain registration. I hope this does well.
It's also good to see a website go live with even less content than mine did! Lets hope they're dreaming up some intelligent, robust methods to impliment their scheme.
I've been stuck at a show this week - getting the site updated is a huge priority but it's been real rough getting decent connectivity. Anyways, I'm sitting on a ton of info that will likely go up this weekend, including a new iteration of the contract, v1.3 of the API documentation, the getting started guide and (cross your fingers) the first release of the client code.
-RWR, OpenSRS Maintainer
"Although we may build the technology that we define as tools, we must be vigilant that those tools do not define us."
Name.Space is the company you're talking about. This company has been doing registrations for new TLDs for 3 years. The windows software you're talking about only changes your DNS to point to one of the many name servers that carry Name.Space's zones. The .com .org .net space is way too crowded, and NSI will have to open the root zones for these new TLDs sooner or later... So it's not just a novelty registration..
-- The Funk, The Whole Funk, And Nothing But The Funk
Nope, $13 all in.
-RWR, OpenSRS Maintainer
"Although we may build the technology that we define as tools, we must be vigilant that those tools do not define us."
as for domain registration, the cheapest ive seen is an australian company called totalnic which charges 35 per domain for 2 years. theres a bunch of core resellers listing on the corenic webpage.
hope some of this linkage helps
- jim k.
CubeSoft charges $10/mo for a virtual host and that includes a domain name, a shell account on the Linux box that's hosting your site, PHP3, Perl, etc....
www.joker.com is cheaper. 20.45 Euro, or around 67.60 cdn for two years or around $20/year us I believe
News for UW students
Their service is "designed to allow domain name resellers that are not ICANN or NSI affiliated to register domain names at wholesale prices."
Why not let individual end users register domain names at wholesale prices instead? That would be truly liberating and enabling.
the main points of the agreement focus on;
I interpret it as meaning we can't move our domain names from NSI over to OpenSRS. If anyone finds out a way to do it, let us know!
smile, it makes everyone else wonder what you're up to
So, will they be providing a ratings system for our domain selections:
* 4 cows for the domain name frootlupz.com
* 0 cows for the domain name sexwithfrootlupz.com
...
-------------------------------------------
I've never heard of the cycle you describe happening. And I reject your parallel to the USSR. Things sometimes *do* change. One example is the PC market, where better goods get cheaper every year. No other market has ever done with. Also, what's wrong with Cuba? It works pretty well, and would work even better if the US weren't too immature to trade with them. Also, there will always be some money in a system, just not necessarily much. Companies will desire to make profits, and they will. Further, you're assuming that domain names are a pure fungible. They aren't. As an ISP, you provide a whole host of services, so that there is differentiation. I would rather get net service from (say) Verio and pay more because they are right on the backbone. -Dave Turner, AC of convinience
Domain names are a product it takes almost zero skill and resources to "produce". They are grossly, horridly overpriced today. The faster the price falls, the better. As for your "destructive competition" theory, bollocks to that. I can only wish that Network Solutions will some day be driven out of business and bankrupted.
So where is the best place to get a domain name registered and perhaps have some web pages hosted. I can't get anything better than modem phone line access. DSL has been a long time coming and still no success.
Perhaps someone can share their shopping experience?
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
I thought that CORE and ICANN both get a cut too somewhere in the range of $29. I may be wrong but I would think that the actual base cost will be TUCOWS' $13 cut PLUS CORE and ICANN charges... for a total of around $42.
Anyone have anymore info on these other costs?
Peter Gogas
ddpg@tekindex.net
You can renew with anyone you want... NSI can't hold you prisoner... My company Name.Space would be happy to renew your domain registration.
-- The Funk, The Whole Funk, And Nothing But The Funk
...who have nothing better to do at 2am than wait around to make the first post...
When it's 2am at your place, it doesn't meant it has to be 2am at my place! the internet is a global thing, so is slashdot!
---
Unfortunately, $70 per domain is the cheapest available right now; but at least you get the domain for two years.
I highly suggest register.com: They make it extremely easy to change administrative contacts, IP addresses/nameservers, and whatever else that's relevant to your domain name.
From their Client FAQ page:
Our current development track includes a NT DLL Client for OpenSRS. We are planning to ship Perl "wrapper" functions for the actual C function calls for the Linux/Solaris environment, and see no reason why we should not ship something similar for the NT environment.
Later...
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
as a female, i can safely say that cracking microsoft would impress me a hell of a lot more than anything else..
;)
:)
except maybe cracking netsol
--
Disclaimer: I do not condone any illegal activity. I forgot to sleep last night and I've had way too much coffee.
I remember a while back there is/was some site that let you register your own domain name AND extension (e.g. www.my.page) or something to that nature, and I also remember getting a "domain" during some promotional day where registration was free. I think there was also a deal where you had to download a certain program (windows native if I remember correctly) that would actually allow you to view the little domain you created. Could anybody elaborate on this? Perhaps if the requirement to download the program were done away with, this could be a viable method of domain registration that could further lower the prices for a domain and help eliminate domain name abuse.
This is a silly argument. If it were true it would apply to everything which is subject to competition. The price would drop, profits would wither etc. Having low cost (or free) alternatives keeps the businesses honest and competitive. It prevents them from gauging the consumers and that a Good Thing.
War is necrophilia.
OTOH, if you depend on this, you're taking the risk that they'll remove the system and force you to pay huge fees.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
People haven't done this before because Network Solutions has SOLE CONTROL of the .com, .net, and .org domains, and nobody but them, until very recently, could insert names into the root zones.
Totalnic is the cheapest. $14/year.
What do you mean you still have to pay InterNIC? (You mean Network Solutions, right?)
You don't. You pay the accreditted registrar who registered your domain for you. In this case, tucows. (yes, Network Solutions sees some of this money)
I like MailBank having registered my surname. It means that it's available to everybody with my surname instead of just to the first SOB that gets it and decides to keep it for himself. Their rates are also cheaper than registering the domain yourself. What MailBank is doing is far different from domain name squatting, in which somebody registers a domain merely in order to extract a higher price for it from some other individual or company.
Here's an article about reacto.com which appears to be doing something very similar to TUCOWS, except, erm, they're charging $130,000 to set you up to allow you to sell domains.
Or have I missed the point of reacto.com?
Cost is $4.95/mo for 6 month prepay. Save some people some time going there.
I think 'renting' is closer to the truth, though that's technically not what it is either.
.com, .net, and .org domains. (and others not relevant to this discussion).
The courts may see it in different ways, however.
As for how it works, it's like this.
There are a series of root nameservers. These hold (among other things) the nameserver references (NS records) for all the 2nd level
As to who runs these, I havent' checked in a whilel, but they are at various universities and government institutions, I believe.
Network Solutions was given the task of co-ordinating and running the InterNIC many years ago. Their task was to allow people to register domains. There are really two databases in effect when you register a domain.
1) The DNS records themselves. (entries in the root servers)
2) The Whois database (as people call it). This is where you find out who has registered what domain, etc...
Initially, this was free.
Then, one day, Network Solutions decided that they required $50/year per domain in order to deal with the 'volume'.
What's changing now is that the ICANN has been formed, and this power is being taken away from Network Solutions (who has abused it greatly IMHO). There will be many organizations who can insert names into the namespace.
Good point. I now have a notice on my web page that I will provide free e-mail and/or web site redirect aliases to anyone with a Weaverling surname -- for free.
Not cheaper than free! It's just one entry in a table and an occasional forwarded mail message. $9.95/mo (what mailbank charges for an alias) is ridiculous. Registering 12,000 names and common words is also insane.
While I hardly think that the 70 dollars that Network Solutions charges for domains is a reasonable price (except for the unarguable fact that people pay it, same reason SUVs are 30 grand), Network Solutions does run the root DNS servers, as well as those for .com, .net, and .org. Keep in mind that without these servers no domain name resolution would be possible under the current system and someone has to do it. This is not a service that I am really interested in seeing cost undercut, I would rather a bit more robust than needed system actually.
.nu domain for 40 bucks or whatever the price is these days.
And for those that may argue that people pay 70 dollars for the domains because they have no choice that is hardly true, you can use subdomains (witness ae.breakset.com, candra.breakset.com, etc) as well as bastardize the country TLDs and get yourself a
I looked at the website and all it had was legal junk!!! I saw the part about $13, but how does that work. Is that all you have to pay to register as many domains as you want? If so, it sounds great to me, especially considering I want a domain name, but don't want to pay somewhere around $70 per year. Steven Roos im2smrt4u@NOSPAMyahoo.com
Finally we get to see an end to NSI's ugly system. If I had to interact with that one more time...
Just went though the OpenSRS site again, but found it to be almost useless for general information/overview. Are there any other related links that anyone knows of?
You still have to pay InterNIC... what's the point?
I may be wrong, and probably am, but this is going to be one of the first times that open-sourcing something affects everyone across the board, regardless of whether you are directly using the software or not it's going to save everyone some bucks. Sadly that's what sticks in peoples minds. I for one will be glad to not have to give any more coin to NSI, I really don't trust them as much after that whole email fiasco.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
I suspect a lot of people out there will be very happy with this, mostly the small-time 'Net companies who have a rack in Telehouse and deal with lots of smaller clients. Having said all that, I know of at least one project which is creating a not-for-profit registrar along the same lines as the UK's Nominet registry, doing it on a membership basis. It'll be interesting to see how it all develops in relation to this project.
You mention "price war". If the "cost price" is $13, then I can see people doing domains at $13.01 - after all, with the sheer volume of domains registered it'll all add up just like call minutes do with UK dialup ISPs. The real benefactors of this are likely to be the ICANN/CORE registrars who do domains at $10 or so, who will swallow the glut of the business.
It's a pity it still has to go through NSI after all that though. And the site itself is mostly "coming soon" messages :(
BR,
Joel.
Smegma.
And moreover, if a first post appears at 2am, it doesn't mean that the first poster was awake. Only that his cronjobs ran on time, and duly noticed the new story.
Say no to software patents.
Scumbags like mailbank.com have already registered over 10,000 surnames, just so they can sell mail aliases and web aliases back to people. Imagine, now they'll be able to afford to get every surname in the phone directory, if not already taken.
All I know is, I'm damn glad I grabed *MY* surname already, cause after this is done, the only available domain names left with be crap like.
Does this mean i can finally have a .com and rid myself of my .cx domains because this will actually be cheaper??? Why havent people done this before? Or have i missed something?
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
Just thought of another great scam this open registration system will allow. A site like mailbank.com has a form where you type in your surname to see if it is available for getting a vanity domain name from them based on that surname. They search their database of 12,000 names and tell you if you can do it.
Imagine now, their form can go further. If your name is Nigel Poncewattle and you enter poncewattle into their search box and they don't already have it registered and it's not already registered elsewhere, they can instantly register the domain poncewattle.com, then come back and say "Congratulations" and resell a piece of it to you (and others.)
In my opinion, NSI should have been allowed to keep the three main TLDs and other registrars should have begun other TLDs so turds like me who wanted their surname as a domain name could have registered something more appropriate like weaverling.nom instead of weaverling.org
This is fantastic news! It makes my skin tingle to think how worried NSI should get over this and why. :^)
This will also give service providers/web developers a better handle on "one-stop shopping" for their customers - go to ONE place and send ONE check to get a domain name and hosting, and not have to muck thru NSI's slow response times.
Hey! What did I ever do to you? I, for one, am not being kept happy with remarks like that.
Tucows is, in effect, giving the end-user the ability to register a domain name for $13. Imagine a huge company, say Disney, that needs to register a ton of domain names all the time. All they need to do is write their own client, stick it on an internal network (save for whatever communication the server does with Tucows) and they can register all the domain names they want, for free (ignoring the $13 on-the-top cost). This sort of technology is groundbreaking. I'm surprised ICANN and NSI are allowing this, as it doesn't only break up the monopoly, it shatters it. -M242
The API documentation listed its functionary in C. Natural, but I'm going to make a command-line interface out of it - or one in Perl.
.fi -domains even more now. That system just is not up to automatization.
I think I'll discourage my clients (eh, friends; who would I be fooling?^) of using
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
If I don't pay the renewal on my domain name, I lose it right? The question is: Since, I got it from Network Solutions, am I forced to renew it there? Or can I renew it somewhere else cheaper. What exactly am I get from Network Solutions, I would guess that it's a refereal from their top level name servers. Can someone explain this, or point to some information on how the system works?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
As the profit margin goes down, the incentive to produce/maintain/whatever the commodity/service reduces to the point that:
1. The existing players find something else to do, and
2. New players decide that there is no point in entering a market with no money.
Over the much longer term, when most people have left the market, the prices will rise and the cycle will repeat.
Extending the obsession with OSS and 'Free' to everything else will result in a collapse of the current economic system. Yeah, right, there are going to be those that trot out the tired old argument that "the model is changing" and "this is the way of the future", but this has already been said in the old USSR and still is in Cuba.
And now, to keep everyone happy; "Linux is GROOVY, /. is cool and I hate Gill Bates
http://www.2day.com will let you register a domain for free with NSI, then you have 2 or 3 months to pay NSi the $70 per domain. If your domains are available, go get 'em now!
smile, it makes everyone else wonder what you're up to
If I want to register a domian name before Tucows gets all of this together what is the best/cheapest place to do it? I have two domains I want to register and don't have $140 bucks to drop on them just this minute.