One TLD or several TLD [SOLVED : one for now, more later]

[moa]

We're thinking in a biased way here, because of tens of years of DNS, centralized training.

What if the traditional web didn't have any TLDs? For example, instead of connecting to "mtgox.com", we would simply use "mtgox".

It would have been easier for everyone, but centralization would have been the big issue: having only one root would mean all the control (and the money) would belong to a single authority, which is not desirable. Hence the many TLDs in existence: artificially reduce the centralization that DNS suffers at root level.

Now, this problem doesn't exist with Namecoin. The system is already decentralized, so why bother with TLDs? TLDs with Namecoin would be purely "visual", actually the authority would be the same: every single computer connected to the network. With the traditional DNS system, foo.com and foo.net are in fact attributed by totally different authorities, but .bit and (say) .bot would be handled in exactly the same way.

Ideally, even the ".bit" part shouldn't be used at all. As a matter of fact, in many namecoin-related tools we don't even use them. It's only needed when using traditional DNS tools.

So, my take: let's not use TLDs (because they don't have any meaning in an already decentralized system), continue to say ".bit" when we need to specify we're dealing with Namecoin domains, and keep that suffix off when it's not needed.

Hmmm, that's some pioneering thinking. Not sure if I followed all of it but if simplifying things to just one name, sans the .com, .bit etc would be pretty revolutionary and probably quite desirable for a lot of non technical users, search engines, lots of things come to mind actually.

Do away with TLD altogether for Namecoin? Can we test this out somehow before the infrastructure gets to heavily invested?

[khal]

Add in /etc/resolv.conf :

Code: Select all

search bit

Then : ping explorer

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PING explorer.bit (178.32.102.200) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from srv01.web-sweet-web.net (178.32.102.200): icmp_req=1 ttl=55 time=30.6 ms

host explorer

Code: Select all

explorer.bit has address 178.32.102.200
explorer.bit mail is handled by 5 srv01.web-sweet-web.net.

In firefox, it will use the short name ("explorer") as hostname, so your web server will need to be configured to accept requests to http://explorer (in the same way you must add explorer.bitname.org and explorer.namecoin.us). This is currently not the case with explorer.bit and might be a problem for a lot of web hosting.

So, it should work with :
http://ns/
http://opennic/
And others that accept any hostname and have only 1 site for 1 ip.

[gsan]

This had also come up on the bitcoin forum as one of the options. It's not that we have a bias, most users and tools have it. So let's consider the pros and cons of getting rid of the .bit TLD, which I think is a neat idea.

As I understand, the proposal is to forget about the imaginary TLD, while keeping the name hierarchy. So, in effect, every Namecoin name becomes a Top-Level Domain.

The obvious advantage is that it's clean, and we won't ever think about these dangling parts again. Naming will be very straightforward and disagreements about the standard will be reduced. Also, there won't be a rush for domain names every time a new TLD is introduced.

All disadvantages come from the fact that the current environment is messy. Some problems that come to mind are:

• It's not obvious how to resolve conflicts with current TLDs, including OpenNIC, but also local hostnames and whatnot. (Oops, someone's got "d/localhost" already.)
• Current tools are built with TLDs in mind. Badly coded client and server tools might be expecting TLDs. Even .bit is a problem with Chrome.
• Users are used to TLDs, it's like the label of the domain. They even seem to be attached to "www".

I'm mostly impartial, since the ".bit" appendage might be a good price to pay in these circumstances. Yes, it's not a "real" TLD, but we can think of it as our connection with reality.

[davux]

It's very clear that we'll need the .bit suffix quite often, because of certain assumptions in software. Whether or not, when and when not, is not the point. Just think of the http:// prefix in URLs: sometimes we include it, sometimes not. Whether we do or don't do it comes out naturally, and it's not even a debate. Same would happen if .bit were the only Namecoin TLD: we would mention it when it's important to be specific, and when there's no ambiguity we'll just be lazy and not write it.

The point I want to insist on, rather, is that the notion of several Namecoin TLDs is nonsense (no offense meant): they would be purely visual, whereas the original goal of TLDs is to balance the authority. Namecoin is already balanced by design. Let's be conscious that our desire to use a TLD-based naming again is only induced by tens of years of tradition. Technically, there's no actual need for TLDs anymore, so let's keep things simple and not introduce them again.

[Chucksta]

The suffix can be very useful in:

Identifying the region the site caters for
.co.uk - United Kingdom
.it - Italy / Italia
.de - Germany / Deutschland

Identifying the site's status/rank(nothing to do with search engines)
(mickey mouse,average,good quality)
- most people will choose to visit officesupplies.com over officesupplies.biz
mickey mouse = .biz .info
average = .net
good quality = .com .co.uk

Identifying the site's purpose
.co.uk - a UK business
.edu - an academic institution
.org - an organisation (international business, charity, etc)
.gov - a government department

I know this is, and has been, open to abuse and manipulation - Johnny Foreigner creating cheap-t-shirts.co.uk (Amazon.co.uk affiliate links) but he is based in China. But it can still be a useful guide.

Obviously this does not argue for the use of suffixes in this system, as none of the above apply to it. At least, not yet.

[davux]

The suffix can be very useful in:
- most people will choose to visit officesupplies.com over officesupplies.biz
mickey mouse = .biz .info
average = .net
good quality = .com .co.uk

... which is why I'm pointing out that it's a cultural habit. We might want to continue with this "tagging system", but if we do, we should be conscious that it's nothing more than that anymore, and that there might be more appropriate ways to do it (see below).

I know this is, and has been, open to abuse and manipulation - Johnny Foreigner creating cheap-t-shirts.co.uk (Amazon.co.uk affiliate links) but he is based in China. But it can still be a useful guide.

What about a tagging system at whois/DNS level? An interesting minimal scheme could be, for instance: country::uk, purpose::commercial, etc.
Of course, these are only examples. A clever, useful and flexible tagging scheme deserves proper thinking.

[khal]

davux... you have disturbed my cultural habit !

Creating category for TLD only really works when there is a strict control (.gov, .edu, etc), so we can admit we will fail the same way, because we voluntarily put no control in the system.

So, if we want to be complete, we need :
http://opennic.bit : full compatibility
http://opennic : only compatible with some softwares
(http://opennic.b? : to have a fallback for .bit in case icann want to disturb us ?)

But this complicate thing to webmaster, they must have 2 ou 3 configured virtual hosts...