on 1/2/2000 6:44 am, Geoff Huston at gih§telstra.net wrote:

> Repeat until it sinks in:
> 
> The DNS is NOT a useful directory tool
> The DNS is NOT a useful directory tool
> The DNS is NOT a useful directory tool
> The DNS is NOT a useful directory tool


You may want to stand there and chant this till you are blue in the face,
but the reality is somewhat different to the design philosophy.

Why are generic domains so sought after? Because:

1- they attract the average user who wants to buy a book and types in
www.book.com

2- they are memorable


Now, you may not think so, but many millions of other people do. Hey, I've
been involved in the internet since before http and even ppp were available.
but I still tried www.sendmail.org and www.bind.org when looking for
information about those packages. (The first one is of course the home page,
the second is a squatter.)

So we might have to accept the fact that people use the DNS as a directory
tool. But how to produce a range of id.au type domains which fulfil this
need?


Given that a john.smith.id.au structure will quickly run into problems,
there is a need to determine a set of xyz where john.smith.xyz.id.au can
work.

A- non hierarchical xyz such as the present system of emus, koalas, etc.

B- another system with criteria that can be guessed. eg. geographical data.

With plan B, a user wants to find my services. So they think "Where does he
live/work?". OK let's try aristedes.maniatis.glebe.id.au. But then suburbs
are not granular enough so we would need streets at least. Even then the
problem is not solved.

So we abandon geography (because that removes the purpose of unchangeable
points of internet contact and quickly becomes unwieldy). How about
birthdates, sex, parent name, tax file number, etc. ? None really work. They
are either too obscure, sensitive (private) or produce ridiculous results.

So we get back to plan A. No intuitive way to guess someone's URL, but at
least they are memorable. A little cutsie, but memorable.

But why aren't they used (much)? Perhaps there is just not that much
perceived need for individual domain space. Every ISP supplies free space of
the form of www.isp.com.au/~username. Every ISP wants to lock in users with
email addresses linked to that ISP, rather than existing in generic domain
space. It makes changing ISP that much more difficult. So I would not expect
ISPs to promote domain services outside their control.

The same thing happened with mobile phone numbers, and there is now a strong
demand for those to be transportable between carriers. Even court cases over
the issue.


Well... some food for thought.

Ari Maniatis


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