At 2:00 PM -0700 8/6/02, Fred Baker wrote: >At 03:13 PM 8/6/2002 -0500, Stephen Sprunk wrote: >>Perhaps having multiple roots *with identical information* would be >>stable and >>workable, but that requirement inherently negates the motivation for having >>multiple roots. > >from that perspective, we have multiple roots now - 13 of them - and >call it a "single root". The reason we can call it that is that they >are indistinguishable from one another from the perspective of the >information they deliver - ask any of them for example.com and they >will invariably point you to a .com server, and if you ask a .com >server, it will point you to the appropriate prefix for that name. > >As you say, what is being asked for is multiple roots with different >and uncoordinated information. What this requires, of course, is for >the end system to know all the roots it might need to ask, and have >a magic decoder ring that tells it which root to ask about which >name. This is fine if the TLD itself tells you which root to ask, >but if someone adds a root to the net that is not generally known, >then most end systems trying to translate the name will generally be >unable to do so. I, personally, find that kind of service pointless >- why use a name which nobody can translate into an address? Hi Fred -- You are hitting on some key points;-)... Lets look at the issues of extending the "root" higher by labeling roots with an additional root identifier. Or doing the reverse, as WIPO appears to want to do. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Case 1 - Raise the Roof: This moves the argument about who is in charge of everything one level higher, but the argument does not end because all the politics remain in place, and we just have to live the whole sequence over again. Having coordinated roots is what is needed, whether roots are multiple or singular, but this is not the only criterion that matters. There are the economic and social issues to consider in the context of open cooperation among the stakeholders. If the people in control of the root servers do not consider these other factors, so as to meet all the legitimate technical, economic and social factors, they will at best have a rough time of it, as at least some despotic rulers have learned over the centuries. We are but seeing a replay of much of history. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Case 2 - Tear off the roof. WIPO already wants to control the SLD level to avoid multiple instances of the same SLD name, and appear to want to eliminate all TLDs, and if they had their way, as I see it, the entire Domain Name Space would have to be flat to satisfy their desires. (Not considering that trademarks are not a flat structure in the first place. They come in classes or categories.) In this case, tearing the roof off and rebuilding it down one level at a time, is at the least an unending process as domain name holders keep adding new names under the SLDs that they are allowed to keep, or until the DNS is converted to a single flat space. +++++++++++ Conclusion: At present we appear to be at some happy medium, but with one primary problem in hand. It is called "learning to live together!" It has a few technical issues involved, but mostly it is a game of "King of the Hill". So, moving the roof of the root up and down will not be likely to have any effect what so ever. Aside from creating lots of pointless work. Now for the other issue: The argument about whether the Brits had it right with their big Endian logic, vice the US little Endian logic, mostly boils down to whether we are all driving on the same side of the road, or not. I thought that argument was resolved when the Brits chose to go along with the little Endian DNS game. May I ask how the Endian wars were resolved in the binary computer and communication worlds? Are some still one way and the rest the other? Does it really matter? I do not see any reason to engage in either of these games; of raising/lowering the roof; or changing the direction of traffic. In terms of human interpretation of the "meaning" of a domain name, the little end is clearly the most critical distinguishing characteristic to be seen by a human. Knowing that my domain name ends with .com is important, but the left hand end is even more important to humans, along with the middle. ++++++++++++++ My bottom line logic is that finding a way to resolve differences through constructive resolution processes is what we need, vice lobbing written grenades over walls, and building fortresses to close out communications. But, I fear this is off topic because it is not technical enough;-)... Cheers...\Stef