Received: (from orc@localhost) by pell.portland.or.us (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA14800; Sun, 6 Jun 1999 21:34:21 -0700 Message-Id: <199906070434.VAA14800@pell.portland.or.us> Subject: Re: Automated .US Registration Site To: domainiac@home.com Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1999 21:34:21 -0700 (PDT) From: "David Parsons" Cc: us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov In-Reply-To: <000501beb096$dd58cd40$51540518@CJ52269-A.alex1.va.home.com> from "domainiac" at Jun 6, 99 11:36:01 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23beta2] Content-Type: text domainiac wrote: > > People just don't want these long names. Most people don't, probably, but there are some pretty long names in NSI's leasespace that are at least as long as some of the .us names: salonmagazine.com pell.portland.or.us pell.chi.il.us Pell.com was shorter, of course, but I dropped that domain like a hot potato(e) when NSI sent out their "Oh, we're taking possession of these names but will cheerfully lease them to you until someone bigger asks for them" letter sometime in the early 90s. I personally don't care about the length of the domain name as long as I can fit it on an 80-character tty screen, and I'm a Unix bigot and type everything by hand. Certainly I'm not the only one who doesn't mind, or else .us would have been abandoned to the speculators (and subsequently abandoned because nobody was able to make a buck off it) a long time ago. -david parsons . Received: by imc.nih.gov with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Mon, 7 Jun 1999 08:56:42 -0400 Message-ID: From: "Cruz, Miguel (OD/ORS)" To: 'charlz franz' Cc: us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov Subject: RE: Automated .US Registration Site Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 08:57:57 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" On Saturday, June 05, 1999 charlz franz wrote: > I also recall an ISI representative at the NTIA meeting saying that > there had been service providers that had been removed for gouging > on registrations. IMHO a bigger problem is when the registrars assign themselves every desirable third- or fourth-level domain under the area they're responsible for (presumably at no cost to themselves): popular neighborhoods, major streets, annual cultural events, and so on. They may charge $25/year for the remaining dregs of the domain space, but anyone who wants to put anything in the 200 most useful parts has to put it on the registrar's advertising-saturated "community page". miguel . Received: from blizzard.odi.com (blizzard [198.3.23.25]) by mineshaft.odi.com (8.8.8/EX3.5) with ESMTP id JAA19662 for ; Mon, 7 Jun 1999 09:33:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from odi.com (sphere [198.3.17.196]) by blizzard.odi.com (8.8.8/IN3.4) with ESMTP id JAA17544 for ; Mon, 7 Jun 1999 09:34:24 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <375BCA60.54A3D2B6@odi.com> Date: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 09:34:24 -0400 From: Jim Williams Organization: Object Design, 25 Mall Rd, Burlington, MA 01803 - 617-674-5355 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [en] (WinNT; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov Subject: Re: Automated .US Registration Site References: <000401bea896$73571440$37e200d1@jbr.flashcom.com> <374EAACF.B2589A45@odi.com> <3758A49D.F4AB8E4D@earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit charlz franz wrote: > > Jim Williams wrote: > > > I notice in reading the Domain Overview that not only is it > > permissible to charge for .us domain name service, there is > > no preference given to delegates willing to provide the > > service at no charge. It seems to me that someone who is > > able to demonstrate technical competence and good faith, and > > who is willing to provide domain registrations at no cost to > > the client should be permitted to claim delegation away from > > someone who is charging a fee even if the governing locality > > has a contract with the entity charging said fee. That is, > > there should be a presumption of free domain names and > > charging for domain names should only happen when no one is > > willing to do it for free. > > The Overview clearly states that any charge should cover only reasonable > expenses and and gives the expectation that charges should be minimal > (http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/usdnr/usdom-overview.html#Cost). I read that as > suggesting that $10/year is not unreasonable. I also recall an ISI > representative at the NTIA meeting saying that there had been service > providers that had been removed for gouging on registrations. > > If I'm understanding you correctly, you seem to think that a person providing > free .us domain name service is bound to be different from a person charging > for it, and you prefer the free provider "type." But isn't it just as likely > that that type would be willing to provide the service still as a 'labor of > love' if they could recoup some of the necessary expenses? I suppose it's > possible that a home pc and dial-up connection is sufficient, but if I could > get a new terminal and maybe a dedicated line out of it, I might consider it > myself. 8-) > > Just wondering, > Charlie Franz > Not presuming to speak for NTIA but happily employed there as a policy > analyst. If name service isn't going to be treated as a basic governmental service like road repair; which I think it should, then take a look at Debian (http://www.debian.org/) or just about any of the open source software projects for an example of a working model for maintaining name spaces. I've no interest in funding your, or anyone else's phone line. :) (There are other ways of recouping expenses. Corporate sponsorship seems to be making considerable headway in public radio.) Jim. . Received: (from orc@localhost) by pell.portland.or.us (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA24381; Mon, 7 Jun 1999 10:32:19 -0700 Message-Id: <199906071732.KAA24381@pell.portland.or.us> Subject: Re: Automated .US Registration Site To: charlzfranz@earthlink.net (charlz franz) Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 10:32:19 -0700 (PDT) From: "David Parsons" Cc: jlw@odi.com, us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov In-Reply-To: <3758A49D.F4AB8E4D@earthlink.net> from "charlz franz" at Jun 5, 99 00:16:29 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23beta2] Content-Type: text charlz franz wrote: > If I'm understanding you correctly, you seem to think that a person providing > free .us domain name service is bound to be different from a person charging > for it, and you prefer the free provider "type." But isn't it just as likely > that that type would be willing to provide the service still as a 'labor of > love' if they could recoup some of the necessary expenses? I suppose it's > possible that a home pc and dial-up connection is sufficient, but if I could > get a new terminal and maybe a dedicated line out of it, I might consider it > myself. 8-) I don't think that would work; if a registrar was planning on recouping all of their expenses via registrations, the yearly fee would rapidly make NSI's leasespace look pretty attractive. For example, if I was going to be the registrar for a large metropolitan area, like Chicago, I'd probably want to have a moderately large fraction of a T-1 line going to one of my nameservers. So I'd put a couple of domain servers into a pair of hosting farms (the cost of a T1 here in portland is well over $1000/month when you add in the required telco charges), plus get a dialup account so I could telnet into these machines: $150 x 2, plus $20, times 12 = $3840. .chi.il.us has ~200 hosts in it last time I checked, so already it's up to ~$20/year for a registration fee. And I don't know how confortable I'd be with only two nameservers, but my comfort faction will increase the registration fee by $10/year per additional nameserver. A sane nameserving setup (4 servers in different domain parks, or a primary in a machine room and 3 other servers in domain parks) would cost more than NSI's lease, and that's just for connectivity. -david parsons .