Actually, the Catholic church does not hold the shroud to be authentic, and church officials have made no comment on the new anaysis reported in this article. This new analysis was not performed by "the church", but rather by an independent researcher.
I have a Vaio, currntly running FC2, and it is an eternal headache. Modem doesn't work, neither do any of the soft keys (have to reboot to switch video output, for example). Support from Sony is non-existent, and a large proportion of the harware is custom or weird.
In other words, it sucks for Linux. If I had known then what I know now I would never have purchased it.
You're right about some things here. University sponsorship would certainly increase the rate of adoption of opennic.
However, the system works perfectly well right now. I use it every day. The root servers are all on at least DSL, and mostly on T1+. The load in running a root server network like this really is minimal. Your problem was probably that you are behind a transparent caching proxy operated by your ISP. That'll screw you up good.
...what's your beef with OpenNIC? It sound like you're doing about the same thing, and they've been live for over a year now. Is there a reason you don't want to work with OpenNIC? Not that there's anything wrong with starting a new root, of course, but we do have an established userbase, and it sounds like your politics are compatible.
The link to the 5 TLDs above is to the OpenNIC domain (www.opennic.glue). I just copied and pasted out of my galeon window. For the rest of the world. the TLD list is here.
Some of the alternate roots did establish an 'all.your.base.are.belong.to.us' domain as a joke, around the time of the ICANN Melbourne meeting (March?). OpenNIC did not. We discussed the matter, decided we had no authority over the.us TLD, and decided not to do it. You have us confused with another root, apparently.
We are not breaking the old DNS. We agree completely with ICANN on the importance of the stability of the inclusive namespace. We absolutely will not touch a TLD or domain that is outside of our purview.
Our root.cache file is here (or here). See for yourself. There are no.us domains in it whatsoever.
The OpenNIC claims only 5 TLDs. We have over 500 registered members - growing fast - and many more users.
Finally, pointing resolve.conf at ANYONE gives that party control of what you see. I think the OpenNIC is more worthy of user trust than any other root, including ICANN/VGA. This is because the entire organization is governed by the vote of its members, much like the Debian people. So nobody's cutting deals behind the scenes.
Get it straight, Cleatus. You're embarassing yourself.
Transparent caching proxies, such as most of the major ISPs use these days, are also a complication in this regard. If you are behind a caching proxy, and your proxy does not use OpenNIC DNS, then you will get a 404 from the proxy, regardless of what nameserver your computer uses. Of course, one could strip the HTTP host header, and the proxy would be forced to fall back to IP number, but that isn't a good solution, given how common name-based virtual hosting is these days.
Anyway, some OpenNIC people have had problems with this. ISPs are usually totally uncoorperative. The only solution is usually to switch to a "mom-and-pop" local corner-store type ISP. Hey, they almost always have better service, anyway.
"I've found people want democracy, but they're often unwilling to do the work, whether it's looking at voting records or taking the most basic measures to protect their own privacy," said Ms. Dyson, who serves on a committee that is trying to increase public representation in Icann. "Frankly sometimes you don't need democracy, you need a market where people understand what's being offered and choose what they want."
Esther Dyson, though no longer Chair of the ICANN board, sums up ICANN's approach to namespace governance. God, these people make me crazy. If you think that the namespace should, in fact, be accountable to its users, and not ruled by fiat, then start using an alternate root now. I recommend the OpenNIC.
Well, the "dollar or two" figure was, indeed, pulled out of my ass.
The deposit idea is an okay one. Problem being that many folks in the world don't have that kind of cash available. In some of the OpenNIC TLDs, we simply restrict individuals to a total of 5 concurrent domain registrations.
The wildcat squatters were told when they began that they would not be recognized.
Recognition is one thing, namespace collisions are another. ICANN could very well have simply ignored.biz and used another string, one not already operated by another party. That is, after all, what they decided to do in the case of.web. Their decision to approve the.biz was irresponsible. It was meant simply to emphasize that they are in total control of the root and if you don't play by their rules you get stepped on. Classic monopolist stuff.
It is important to remember that not everyone who exists outside of ICANN is a 'wildcat squatter'. Some of this crap exists in the alt DNS community, of course, but most of us are committed to the ideal of a user-owned and operated namespace which exists beyond the control of a single entity. Many of us resent being milked by netsol for what is, after all, a very simple service. Why do domains cost as much as they do? Because the business is, at present, a monopoly. The damn things should cost no more than a dollar or two.
Should the new.net folk be allowed the fifty odd plum domains they have started selling just because they were the pushiest?
Last time I checked they were only claiming 20 TLDs. And, yes, the new.net domains which are not colliders should be recognized, as far as I'm concerned. Of course, new.net does not play nice with other alt DNS groups like OpenNIC. Most of the 20 TLDs they claim were already in operation long before they incorporated.
We're working on it. Wanna help out? Check out the OpenNIC. There are a number of other alt root networks, as well, including ORSC, TINC, AlterNIC, name.space, new.net, and so on, many of whom cooperate to some extent. We're working on getting a standardized inclusive namespace put together, including OpenNIC, AlterNIC, ORSC, TINC, IRSC, name.space and PacificRoot. It would be great to get new.net in on it, as well, but they seem to be pretty standoffish. They do not play well with others...
And to answer your question, no, the issue was never resolved. ICANN very clearly decided to simply ignore the existence of alternate roots and prior claims to TLD strings. (though they are inconsistent in this stance. Their decision not to approve a new.web TLD was clearly related to the existence of a prior claim by Image Online.
Yet another example of heavy handed authoritarianism on the part of ICANN, and yet another reason for all of us who care about the DNS as a public resource to dwitch our DNS to an alternate root system. Visit the OpenNIC to find out how. It's easy.
As far as I know, there is no maximum length stipulated for TLD strings. The two-letter country code TLD/three-letter global (nominally) TLD distinction seems to be strictly convention. As you say,.museum and.aero are two longer examples which ICANN is considering. Other roots have many other examples. OpenNIC, for example, operates.parody and.null (see my URL, above!).
Done. Several such already exist. OpenNIC, AlterNIC, ORSC, TINC to name just a few. All of these are operating right now.
[2] copy all existing TLD and SLD info to these servers (time consuming/expensive but possible)
Not necessary. They can have.com,.net,.org and the new ones, as well. All we have to do is have the new root servers delegate the legacy TLDs to the ICANN/NSI servers. So ICANN does not cease to exist, it simply becomes one of many. It becomes subject to COMPETITION. People will be able to vote with their feet. In fact, people are alreasy beginning to do so!
[3] set policy. "First come, first serve." (that's it. done.)
Not so simple. Generic TLDs should be first-come first served. There should also be a place for chartered TLDs, though, like the existing.edu. OpenNIC is mostly focussed on chartered TLDs, while the other alternate roots seem to have mostly generic TLDs. Rules and regulations pertaining to domain name ownership and rights and priority should be decided on a per-TLD basis, at the time of that TLD's incorporation into the root.
[4] Convince big name ISPs to point to these root servers. (extremely difficult)
That's the trick, allright. I think this will happen in stages. Stage 1 will be early adopters, mostly people who feel like they have a stake in the way the DNS is operated and who are fairly technically savvy. This is where we are now, with probably less than 20000 users of all the alternate roots combined. Stage 2, I think, will be when some of the free OS distros begin to include alternate DNS as an install option. Probably Debian, Slackware and the *BSD people will be first. This will bring in a ton more users. This may be less than a year away. We at OpenNIC have had discussion with people involved in some of these OS projects. Nothing has been decided, but positive noises have been made. At some point a critical mass will be reached. The alternate TLDs will begin to have enough content so that joe earthlink user will begin to call support and ask why he can't visit www.good.beer or something. This will be stage3, when the ISPs begin to come on board. At that point the revolution will have suceeded.
On the other had, there's no reason you have to give up your existing domain name to use a new one. You can simply put your web page on both names, forward one email account to the other, whatever. All of us do this now, though we hope in a few years it won't be necessary. And since OpenNIC domains are free, there is no extra cost.
I do actually have web spaces and email in the conventional namespace. But I can put my OpenNIC email on/. and not get spammer!
Slashdot Mirror
See page 11 of their DARPA Grand Challenge entry document (http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge05/TechPapers/ Stanford.pdf). It runs Linux, the software is written in C/C++, and it uses IPC for communication between the various components.
(This was pointed out by an AC elsewhere in this thread),
This is huge. Some people may not realize that Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world.
Are you happy, citizen?
Actually, the Catholic church does not hold the shroud to be authentic, and church officials have made no comment on the new anaysis reported in this article. This new analysis was not performed by "the church", but rather by an independent researcher.
Clan EIT is a Nethack gaming clan in the tournament, so the post is definitely on topic.
I have a Vaio, currntly running FC2, and it is an eternal headache. Modem doesn't work, neither do any of the soft keys (have to reboot to switch video output, for example). Support from Sony is non-existent, and a large proportion of the harware is custom or weird.
In other words, it sucks for Linux. If I had known then what I know now I would never have purchased it.
Fedora inlcudes support for apt and yum. I use yum and I love it. Handles all your dependencies for you. Give it a try. It will make you happy.
Wait. What am I saying?
However, the system works perfectly well right now. I use it every day. The root servers are all on at least DSL, and mostly on T1+. The load in running a root server network like this really is minimal. Your problem was probably that you are behind a transparent caching proxy operated by your ISP. That'll screw you up good.
Look, nobody could argue that MS has monopoly power in the gaming console market. Therefore, antotrust law doesn't even enter into it.
Check out the OpenNIC.
We are not breaking the old DNS. We agree completely with ICANN on the importance of the stability of the inclusive namespace. We absolutely will not touch a TLD or domain that is outside of our purview.
Our root.cache file is here (or here). See for yourself. There are no .us domains in it whatsoever.
The OpenNIC claims only 5 TLDs. We have over 500 registered members - growing fast - and many more users.
Finally, pointing resolve.conf at ANYONE gives that party control of what you see. I think the OpenNIC is more worthy of user trust than any other root, including ICANN/VGA. This is because the entire organization is governed by the vote of its members, much like the Debian people. So nobody's cutting deals behind the scenes.
Get it straight, Cleatus. You're embarassing yourself.
Anyway, some OpenNIC people have had problems with this. ISPs are usually totally uncoorperative. The only solution is usually to switch to a "mom-and-pop" local corner-store type ISP. Hey, they almost always have better service, anyway.
Claim your namespace.
- "I've found people want democracy, but they're often unwilling to do the work, whether it's looking at voting records or taking the most basic measures to protect their own privacy," said Ms. Dyson, who serves on a committee that is trying to increase public representation in Icann. "Frankly sometimes you don't need democracy, you need a market where people understand what's being offered and choose what they want."
Esther Dyson, though no longer Chair of the ICANN board, sums up ICANN's approach to namespace governance. God, these people make me crazy. If you think that the namespace should, in fact, be accountable to its users, and not ruled by fiat, then start using an alternate root now. I recommend the OpenNIC.Claim your namespace.
Claim your namespace.
Well, the "dollar or two" figure was, indeed, pulled out of my ass.
The deposit idea is an okay one. Problem being that many folks in the world don't have that kind of cash available. In some of the OpenNIC TLDs, we simply restrict individuals to a total of 5 concurrent domain registrations.
Claim your namespace.
Recognition is one thing, namespace collisions are another. ICANN could very well have simply ignored .biz and used another string, one not already operated by another party. That is, after all, what they decided to do in the case of .web. Their decision to approve the .biz was irresponsible. It was meant simply to emphasize that they are in total control of the root and if you don't play by their rules you get stepped on. Classic monopolist stuff.
It is important to remember that not everyone who exists outside of ICANN is a 'wildcat squatter'. Some of this crap exists in the alt DNS community, of course, but most of us are committed to the ideal of a user-owned and operated namespace which exists beyond the control of a single entity. Many of us resent being milked by netsol for what is, after all, a very simple service. Why do domains cost as much as they do? Because the business is, at present, a monopoly. The damn things should cost no more than a dollar or two.
Should the new.net folk be allowed the fifty odd plum domains they have started selling just because they were the pushiest?
Last time I checked they were only claiming 20 TLDs. And, yes, the new.net domains which are not colliders should be recognized, as far as I'm concerned. Of course, new.net does not play nice with other alt DNS groups like OpenNIC. Most of the 20 TLDs they claim were already in operation long before they incorporated.
Claim your namespace.
Claim your namespace.
And to answer your question, no, the issue was never resolved. ICANN very clearly decided to simply ignore the existence of alternate roots and prior claims to TLD strings. (though they are inconsistent in this stance. Their decision not to approve a new .web TLD was clearly related to the existence of a prior claim by Image Online.
Yet another example of heavy handed authoritarianism on the part of ICANN, and yet another reason for all of us who care about the DNS as a public resource to dwitch our DNS to an alternate root system. Visit the OpenNIC to find out how. It's easy.
Claim your namespace.
Claim your namespace.
With regard to your points:
[1] a new set of root servers (easy).
Done. Several such already exist. OpenNIC, AlterNIC, ORSC, TINC to name just a few. All of these are operating right now.
[2] copy all existing TLD and SLD info to these servers (time consuming/expensive but possible)
Not necessary. They can have .com, .net, .org and the new ones, as well. All we have to do is have the new root servers delegate the legacy TLDs to the ICANN/NSI servers. So ICANN does not cease to exist, it simply becomes one of many. It becomes subject to COMPETITION. People will be able to vote with their feet. In fact, people are alreasy beginning to do so!
[3] set policy. "First come, first serve." (that's it. done.)
Not so simple. Generic TLDs should be first-come first served. There should also be a place for chartered TLDs, though, like the existing .edu. OpenNIC is mostly focussed on chartered TLDs, while the other alternate roots seem to have mostly generic TLDs. Rules and regulations pertaining to domain name ownership and rights and priority should be decided on a per-TLD basis, at the time of that TLD's incorporation into the root.
[4] Convince big name ISPs to point to these root servers. (extremely difficult)
That's the trick, allright. I think this will happen in stages. Stage 1 will be early adopters, mostly people who feel like they have a stake in the way the DNS is operated and who are fairly technically savvy. This is where we are now, with probably less than 20000 users of all the alternate roots combined. Stage 2, I think, will be when some of the free OS distros begin to include alternate DNS as an install option. Probably Debian, Slackware and the *BSD people will be first. This will bring in a ton more users. This may be less than a year away. We at OpenNIC have had discussion with people involved in some of these OS projects. Nothing has been decided, but positive noises have been made. At some point a critical mass will be reached. The alternate TLDs will begin to have enough content so that joe earthlink user will begin to call support and ask why he can't visit www.good.beer or something. This will be stage3, when the ISPs begin to come on board. At that point the revolution will have suceeded.
So get on the bandwagon early. Join up now!
Claim your namespace.
On the other had, there's no reason you have to give up your existing domain name to use a new one. You can simply put your web page on both names, forward one email account to the other, whatever. All of us do this now, though we hope in a few years it won't be necessary. And since OpenNIC domains are free, there is no extra cost.
I do actually have web spaces and email in the conventional namespace. But I can put my OpenNIC email on /. and not get spammer!
Claim your namespace.