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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.
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
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
...
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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
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.
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 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
Ahh, but you won't have to pay as much (hopefully). This in turn will result in more money in your pocket each year (for beer). And it will add up to a bunch of savings for those of us who seem to have collected a bunch of domains during our travels (legitimately, not due to so-called squatting).
As a side note, I'd like to express my awe at the whole first post game. I still don't get it. Let it go already. Maybe the first 5-10 posts should display the user's IP so we can ridicule those who have nothing better to do at 2am than wait around to make the first post, with no inciteful text in the posting.
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.
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.
From the TUCOWS SRS site
http://www.opensrs.com/OpenSRSDRAv1.0.1.txt
2.8 The Reseller agrees to assist, when requested by TUCOWS, in the facilitation of transfers of SLD
registrations from another registrar to TUCOWS and vice versa pursuant to NSI's policy on Changes in
Sponsoring Registrar by SLD Holders appended to the NSI Agreement as Exhibit B thereto (the NSI
Change in Registrar Policy?).
I haven't read through the NSI policy yet, but it seems to me that this implies that they may be hoisted on their own petard
This would be good news for ISP's renewing long standing customers TLD's
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.
Actually, that bit simply refers to the back-end piece that allows the OpenSRS to interface with NSI-SRS. It is a completely proprietary interface that we were required to sign a contract to use.
-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 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