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FSF Proposes .gnu TLD To ICANN
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jul 12, 2000 03:10 PM
from the proposition-for-ya dept.
from the proposition-for-ya dept.
n3rd writes "It looks like the Free Software Foundation would like a .gnu TLD (Top Level Domain) in order to 'expand the name space, particularly for individuals and software developers who cannot find the name they want from .com, .net or .org'. If additional TLDs are going to be added, shouldn't they be more 'generic' so everyone can make use of them, not just the OSS community?" No. I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
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FSF Proposes .gnu TLD To ICANN
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Re:too narrow tld (Score:3)
In fact, I think that ought to be the criterion used to judge whether a proposed TLD is appropriate:
I can see creating country and language specific TLDs so that registrations can be handled by someone acting under the same legal system and speaking the same language. But that has already been done. How fine do we need to slice it?
How long...? (Score:4)
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Hmmmm.... (Score:3)
Naw, don't think so. We need unifying domains, not ones to split 'us' up more -- that only suits the purposes of the direct marketroid collective. This is a dumb idea. Sorry, .rms ;)
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
Re:The Solution: Allow ***ALL*** TLDs. (Score:3)
Re:The Solution: Allow ***ALL*** TLDs. (Score:4)
Allow anything to be used as a TLD.
HOWEVER, still require registrations to consist of domain name + TLD. i.e., you must still sumbit both parts to constitute a single registration application. The TLD itself cannot be registered to anyone. and remains open for anyone to use.
I like the idea, but it breaks the hierarchical nature of DNS. Each "." in a machine name delimits a "zone of authority". With out any cacheing, you have to ask a root server for a server that can answer .org queries. Then you ask that server for a server that can answer .slashdot.org queries. Lastly you ask that server for the address of www.slashdot.org. Normally, most of this data is cached in the lower levels of the hierarchy, giving use reasonable DNS performance as well as managability.
As good as this idea is, it won't be adopted any time soon because of the infrastructure changes needed to support an unlimited number of TLDs.
A joke too far (Score:4)
"Go to www.software.gnu"
"Did you say .new?"
"No, .gnu."
Ack.
...phil
Sorry no. You are a fuckwit. (Score:3)
And what wanker moderators gave this tosspot a score of 5?
If you want to see what *should* be done with the DNS system have a look at the following link:
http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/dns/
TLD's are a batardified anyways... why not? (Score:3)
What to do? Add more TLDs? I say why the hell not? It's not like they are anything more than cosmetic anyways these days.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
Re:Problems with .gnu and other observations. (Score:3)
Re:too narrow tld (Score:3)
I think that Free and Open Source Software movments are taking up a good deal of the second-level name space, and predictably so, given the high level of net-savvy among FS and OSS advocates. Supporters of this type of development certainly span the spectrum from non-profit organizations through corporations and into academia. The creation of a TLD for FS/OSS would be a good courtesy to the rest of the world.
Notably, however,
This would be another FSF-sponsored perk that encourages developers to endorse copyleft. Imagine: Gimp.gnu, gnome.gnu, emacs.gnu, and gcc.gnu all become well-known URLs. The FSF could offer a free second-level domain name in this special TLD to young developers who adopt FSF principles.
OSS advocates, BSD advocates, and others who view Stallman may be specifically excluded. They may want their own TLD -- and who knows, if RMS can get his, why can't ESR?
The creation of a
(a) Consolidate free software web sites under a common TLD -- freeing up SLDs under
(b) Leverage a potentially popular TLD to encourage (at a minimum) lip service to the FSF.
(c) Catalyze the conflict that RMS, ESR, et al perceive between free software movements.
I'll be intrigued by ICANN's eventual decision on this.
If Anybody Deserves a "Special Interest" Domain... (Score:4)
Imagine that you have the choice between shopping at Amazon.com or Amazon.gnu. Which one do you choose? What message does that send to the world at large? A good one, I'd think...
And I want .BSD (Score:3)
too narrow tld (Score:4)
Re:The Solution: Allow ***ALL*** TLDs. (Score:3)
Not quite. I can still snatch up hot.sex, free.sex, gimme.sex, etc. and sell them all for lots of money. All this does, really, is strip the ".com" and add a dot somewhere in the middle. Someone will still have the common names, as the bidding war moves from linux.com to linux.gnu.
If you want a common domain + TLD combo, you're still going to have to fight with everyone else just as we fight over
This doesn't solve the trademark issue either: Apple (as the richest of all Apple * companies) will snatch up all the obvious Apple related names (apple.store, buy.apple, etc.). If I go to buy.apple, am I looking to buy actual apples or Apple hardware and software? Who decides? And does Apple own everything in the
Anyway, if it ever goes through, I'm going only going to get stuff in the *.tld TLD, for obvious humor-related reasons. (domain.tld anyone?)
Taco mentioned .dot at geekpride (Score:4)
aych tee tee pee colon slash slash slash dot dot dot
(http://slashdot.dot)
There's trouble.
*.gnu.org (Score:4)
I think that the Free Software Foundation is a little late on the ball in supporting the community - they needed to have something like this years before. Unfortunately, most FSF software is done cathedral-style, and that's why Open Source is a stronger idea - because it builds a community. I can get *.sourceforge.net, but GNU has up until now made no moves towards supporting the Free Software community - which is why there isn't one.
I'll support the community that supports me, thank you. In the mean time, push for a .oss for open source software.
.dot domain? (Score:3)
Why? So you can have "slash dot dot dot"? Or the domain dot.dot Let's go a level further and have dotdot.dot
Throw in some dashes and you have morse code!
This Is Ridiculous (Score:4)
So I say:
This is just a bit premature... (Score:3)
As the article states, ICANN is not really accepting proposals for new TLDs. They are still developing policies for considering them. So although new TLDs like
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What if we just did an audit first? (Score:3)
Of course this is going to screw the lookup engines on the root servers which are optimized around having a small set of 3 letter TLDs.. It's fixable though.
As a first step, I'd go for a .gnu. Free software makes the net run and is worthy of a .net of it's own. Since GNU is kind of a brand of free software maybe a .fs (free software) would be better.
Re:I see a flaw in your argument. (Score:4)
Not according to the InterNIC's zone file, which is easily downloaded from ftp://rs.internic.net/domain [internic.net]. A summarized version:
; The use of the Data contained in Network Solutions' aggregated .com, .org, and .net top-level domain zone files (including the checksum
;
; files) is subject to the restrictions described in the access Agreement
; with Network Solutions.
ARPA. IN SOA A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. hostmaster.internic.net. (
;End of file.
(snip SOA)
ARPA. 518400 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
(snip 8 root-servers.net entries, B-I in order of H, C, G, F, B, I, E, D)
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 518400 IN A 198.41.0.4
(snip the above root-servers.net entries' IP addresses)
IN-ADDR.ARPA. 172800 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
(snip again, same order)
So there are no sites under .arpa, just in-addr :)
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I want the .tld TLD. (Score:3)
Yeah, I know it isn't funny. Go away.
--Shoeboy
timeframe? (Score:3)
-Superb0wl
TLD's SUCK! (Score:3)
As it stands, the second they open up any new TLD's major corporations and domain squatters will grab up just about everything that is available.
The definations for TLD's were good, but they were never adhered too, and currently I don't see any change to that.
The whole system should now be ripped out, because as with anything else, it has become greedy mongering for www.mycorporation.everything.
The tld's imposed organization ad structure that made sense, but no one had sense enough to stick with it. Granted, that cant really be blamed on any one person or organization as nobody forsaw the explosive persoronl and corporate growth of the internet untill it was already too late. Now it has grown so large that nothing at all is going to be done about TLD misuse ever, as anyone with money will feed their congressperson to oppose it.
Gotta love corporate america.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented [mp3.com]
We should allow ANY TLD. (Score:4)
So why isn't this even being considered? As far as I can tell, it's because big companies want to be guaranteed that they can get the second-level domain corresponding to their trademarks under ALL existing TLDs. This is ridiculous, and totally unlike the way trademarks act in the real world.
(If I have a trademark on the word "Foo" for my brand of widgets, I can't stop you from using that trademark for an entirely different kind of product, and I certainly can't stop you from using it in conversation, or as a nickname, etc.)
Increasingly, it seems that big-money interests see the digital age as a chance to extend their (government-given) intellectual property rights much much farther than they've ever been before -- taking more and more rights away from the individual.
So sure, allow a
--
The Solution: Allow ***ALL*** TLDs. (Score:5)
Allow anything to be used as a TLD.
HOWEVER, still require registrations to consist of domain name + TLD. i.e., you must still sumbit both parts to constitute a single registration application. The TLD itself cannot be registered to anyone. and remains open for anyone to use.
This would END squatting because it would be impossible for Microsoft, etc. to register all forms of Microsoft.* as doing so would require infinite money.
This also allows same named entities to coexist. Apple Records can have apple.records. Apple computer can have apple.computers. A farmer in WA can have apple.farms. While another company can have foster.farms.
Unownable TLDs also ENDS the "domain brokering" business because specific domains cease to possess any value. If you have foo.com, foo.net, and foo.org, you can demand high $$$ from any foo entities. With infinite TLDs, there's always an alternative choice.
How to implement this from a tech POV? Use the first letter of the TLD to divide up the TLDs among the root servers to balance the load. Subdivide for common letters.
Will ICANN do this? Heck no. Bidding wars over limited domains generates big $$$. And trademark holders like the idea of "buying up all variations of our name so no one else can use it". So between the $$$ and politics, I suppose this sensible suggestion will never happen.
In the unlikely event that this happens ... (Score:5)
- brandspankin.gnu
- out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the.gnu
- spiro-a.gnu
Cheers,IT
FSF should know better (Score:4)
most needed TLD (Score:4)
that way all the crazy stuff that's not good for "normal healthy americans" can hang out there unmolested.
on top of that we need a law saying you can't sue someone over their
wish
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Re:*.gnu.org (Score:5)
This is the way to keep domains meaningful (or as meaningless as the DNS guru of the SLD cares to make it). It is how things are done in the .US TLD. Volunteers came forward to handle various cities and to distrbute the domains for those municipalities. If gnu.org was willing to let software developers have third level domains, I could go to ssh.gnu.org and know I would get the site(s) for ssh tools. The same holds true for movies; x-men.fox.com is 10^6 times better than www.x-men-the-movie.com AND it gives fox a little publicity to boot. Too many TLDs is just asking for trouble (although I think we need more than 3).
Re:We should allow ANY TLD. (Score:3)
Okay, so you failed to demonstrate how this would ease cybersquatting or trademark silliness, but here's why it would be a catastrophically bad idea to open up the TLDs to everyone.
If you allow anyone to register whatever TLD they want, what's the difference between that and only having one TLD? You're just moving the problem upstream a level.
But you've worsened the problem, because you can't just run to a different higher-level domain (eg taking foo.net when foo.com is taken), because there *is* no higher level.
No. The answer, instead, is to create new TLDs, and regulate them better this time (only allowing nonprofits in .org, for example).
for all you conspiracy theorists.. (Score:4)
If you take it as given that the above paragraph is actually true, then
Now, of course, you could claim that they [the Suited People] would be scared more, because free software people tend to defend their copylefted ground rather fiercely, but you'd be wrong. A
(oh, and on that last note: what if a company does _some_ open source but not _all_? Apple, as part of their Darwin project, has released code under their own APSL but has also given out [or at least is about to give out] some code *cough* *cough* EGCS enhancements *cough* as GPLed (mostly for the purpose of being integrated into an existing GPLed codebase..). Based on this, should apple get an apple.gnu TLD to map to publicsource.apple.com, even though the majority of the software there is not actually GPLed?)
As for "does the FSF deserve a TLD"..? well, hell, they give them to countries, right? I honestly think that the GNU foundation has a bigger impact on geopolitics than Christmas Island [www.nic.cx].
Unfortunately the whole question becomes very painful when you bring up the question of What About BSD? and What About Qt/KDE? I'd like to hope any TLD made will have a more loose definition of "free" than "the GPL". [i like the LGPL better personally, but that's a flamewar for another day..].. In other words i'd just be a hell of a lot happier with
In My Opinion (Score:3)
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Problems with .gnu and other observations. (Score:5)
For example, I recently saw in 2600 Magazine how Verizon (the result of the Bell Atlantic/GTE merger) registered something like seven hundred domains, all with "Verizon" in them... even insulting ones, like "verizonsucks.com". They had registered all these domains under the .com, .net and .org TLDs. When the 2600 guys couldn't register "verizonsucks.com", they registered "verizonREALLYsucks.com". In response, Verizon sent them a letter informing them of their violation of trademark laws. Read all about it straight from the horse's mouth [2600.com]. (This brings up the point: If Verizon registered "robdumas.com", could that be considered to be fraudulently using my name? I mean, after all, if I can't register a domain with THEIR name, would I/should I let them register a domain with MY name in it?)
Anyway, simply adding a new TLD will just mean that they register there, too.
The only way a .gnu TLD would be worth adding is if we, the Open Source community, somehow controlled it, so we could attempt to keep cybersquatters out, without compromising the freedom of it. Perhaps in order to GET a .gnu domain, you must PRODUCE something under the GNU Public License.
Hey, maybe one day we'll all open up Slashdot to find that Microsoft wants to register "microsoft.gnu"! Ha!
Two final point of interest, somewhat related to this story/thread:
I'm interested to hear what others have to say about the topic. Reply here, or e-mail me [mailto].
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Robert Dumas