----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Baker" <fred@cisco.com>
Yes. Since ICANN was formed, they have periodically come to the IETF to ask how many TLDs we thought the system could support. On the basis of the SLD count (if example.com is a domain name and ".com" is a TLD, "example" is an SLD) within recognized gTLDs like .com, I would have to say that a properly maintained database can handle a very large number of names in a flat name space. That said, that does not imply that the DNS should be replaced with a flat namespace; there's this "scaling" thing that competent people think about.
What I told them, periodically, as IETF Chair, was that the number of TLDs in the network was largely a business discussion. If a potential TLD came forth with a business plan that made sense, fine, and if the business plan didn't pencil out, there was no sense in adding the TLD. Given the number of times they asked, that wasn't a satisfactory response; they wanted a number.
In this case, I would look at it this way. Imagine that ICANN wanted to go into the business of selling SLDs in competition with .com etc. How would they go about it? There are two obvious ways: they could create a new TLD such as ".icann" and sell names like "example.icann". Or, the could start selling TLDs on the open market. The really nice thing from their perspective would be that they don't need to maintain the database, bandwidth, or putzpower needed to supply the service - they already have a set of root zone operators that have volunteered to do so. So, they make money on the names and deliver the service for free.
And that's fine... but it still doesn't forsee the idea that a registry *could be it's own -- and only -- client*. For me, the engineering problem remains *single-component FQDNs*. I can't itemize the code they'll break, but I'm quite certain there's a lot. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274