NAVYJOBS.COM

Mon Apr 22 22:50:05 UTC 1996

On Mon, 22 Apr 1996, Sean Doran wrote:

> Looking around a bit, completely unscientifically and without
> more than eyeballing things, it appears that this practice
> is continuing, despite the back-pressure of a registration
> fee levied by the InterNIC.

Sean, you misunderstand. The fee is not a back-pressure, on the contrary,
it is an IMPETUS. It's like this...

   Company: I want one of thos domain thingies.

   Internic: That'll be 50 bucks.

   Company: 50 bucks? I'll take 5 then; put it on my VISA.

> issue on any front, and whether it really needs fixing
> by perhaps us suggesting that subsequent domains be
> charged on an exponential scale, with proceeds going
> into the costs of maintaining the worldwide DNS, particularly
> with respect to user-and-administrator education.

Someone posted some stats on com-priv a week ago that would indicate
that Internic is raking in $10 million per annum with the current fees.
Are you sure anything needs fixing here?

> (NANOG or I*-something-or-other); I'm just wondering
> if I'm completely out-to-lunch on this one.

You have a good idea there in establishing a funding link between the
registrants of domain names and the people who operate the registries and
the root nameservers. Of course, most registries are already funded by
domain fees like the Internic's $50. The missing link is funding for the
root nameservers. Some people also feel that DNS registrations should fund
ISOC/IAB/IETF/IANA or some sub or superset thereof.

ftp://ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/internet-drafts/draft-ymbk-itld-admin-00.txt
covers some of this as does the POISED95 WG

> all clearly able to fit (at least for the moment) into 
> <eighty-subdomains>.BigCompany.COM.

I think human beings like flat hierearchies. In management. In GUI menu
systems. And now in DNS. Certainly they seem to be more efficient in
management and in GUI menu systems and even B+ Trees vs. binary trees.
Maybe they really are more efficient in the DNS as well.

> If people think this sort of thing is OK, I'll shut up now.

I don't think there really is anything that we can do about it other than
to accomodate it. I fully intend to have a couple of dozen domains just
for myself and run virtual WWW servers on my home LAN in the next century. 
But by then that will be the normal state of affairs.

The plans to open up the top level domain space by adding 15 or more new
international top level domains per year will make the landscape rather
more interesting.  http://www.kirk.tlhIngan.alt :-)

Michael Dillon                                    Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc.                                 Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com                             E-mail: michael at memra.com