[12507] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: About the creation of new 3-letter domain(s)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christian Huitema)
Fri May 20 00:02:57 1994
To: montanaro@ausable.crd.ge.com (Skip Montanaro)
Cc: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>, postel@isi.edu (Jon Postel),
nettech@crl.com, jlw@cs.columbia.edu, PAUL@tdr.com,
namedroppers@rs.internic.net, bigz@rice.edu, com-priv@psi.com,
ja@ess.cs.ucl.ac.uk, pullen@darpa.mil, PVM@isi.edu,
hostmaster@internic.net, hostmaster@nic.ddn.mil
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 18 May 1994 07:08:40 EDT."
<9405181108.AA02391@ausable.crd.Ge.Com>
Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 14:07:11 +0200
From: Christian Huitema <Christian.Huitema@sophia.inria.fr>
Jon's proposal was perhaps a bit terse, yet I don't believe you
will be able to do much better:
1) Why not use geographical structure? Well, why not indeed. But then you can
do it now. Just register names-r-us.chi.il.us, or whatever. And you don't
solve the "monopoly" problem, i.e. that there is only one logical server
where you can register (the one of your city). If you don't like the
manager's manners, or policy, or tariff, or cut of hair, you are stuck.
2) Why not use mnemonic names? Because as you observe you run into all kinds
of name conflicts, trade marks violations, you name it. If you are *not*
convinced, just pick any good looking 5 letters combination and try to
trade mark it: the odds that you will fail are about 75%. Numbers are our
friends.
3) Why two levels of subdomains? Because we have seen the movie before, in
".com". Because one level is certainly not enough. In the long run, you need
more domains than say, cities.
4) Why a new top domain, and not, say, <names-r-us.org>? Because you are going
to ask some NIC to manage that domain anyhow. See "monopoly" above and
understand why it has to be a "public service". Then if it is a public
service, you can as well make it a top domain..
So why don't we go on with it?
Christian Huitema
