Date: Tue, 17 May 2011 11:49:47 -0400 From: Steve Clark <sclark@netwolves.com>
This is all very confusing to me. How are meaningful names going to assigned automatically?
It'll probably be a lot like Apple's and Xerox's various multicast naming systems if we want it to work in non-globally connected networks.
Right now I see something like ool-6038bdcc.static.optonline.net for one of our servers, how does this mean anything to anyone else?
It wouldn't of course. I'm sorry if my earlier words on this were useless. Dave Taht gave a wonderful talk a few weeks ago ("Finishing the Internet", see http://amw.org/prog11.pdf) during which he had us start an rsync from his wireless laptop to as many of ours as could run rsync, and then had the conference organizer turn off the upstream link. He noted that those of us using the local resource (a giant file, either an ISO or a MPEG or similar) were still getting work done whereas those of us trying to "use the internet" were dead in the water. Then, referring to his time in Nicaragua he said that he has a lot of days like this and he'd like more work to be possible when only local connectivity was available. Compelling stuff. Pity there's no global market for localized services or we'd already have it. Nevertheless this must and will get fixed, and we should be the generation who does it.