On Fri, 12 May 2006, Jim Popovitch wrote:
Fred Baker wrote:
On May 11, 2006, at 8:42 PM, Jim Popovitch wrote:
Why not just plain ole hostnames like nanog, www.nanog, mail.nanog
For the same reason DNS was created in the first place. You will recall that we actually HAD a hostname file that we traded around...
Let's not go backwards now.... ;-)
Actually we in fact still have all that - bunch of records (around 230k now) distributed globally with specialized protocol. There is of course some talk that combined with 15%/year growth that is not sustainable long-term...
Note: I didn't advocate replacing DNS with host files. I'll attempt to clarify: If X number of DNS servers can server Y number of TLDs, why can't X number of completely re-designed DNS servers handle just root domain names without a TLD.
I strongly suspect that they actually can right now. But like above mentioned distributed 230k "host route file", many millions of records entered in just a few dns servers may not be scalable long-term. However I think each name in the root zone is not workable solution primarily politically - there are too many organizations with same name - some can be identified by their area of specialty, some identified by their specific geographic location and many many others are not that distinguishable but still have the same name. What about trademarks you ask? Well the thing is what is trademark in one geographic location, may not be trademark in another. Nor are all the trademarks truly universal for all types of activity. So while our current system is not perfect for everyone, in general it seems to be the only right approach to take. Unfortunately this does leave many holes that are abused for financial reasons in various ways. But I think system with global names in root zones would be abused in even worth ways... -- William Leibzon Elan Networks william@elan.net