Perhaps you might want to say

The DNS is not a GOOD directory tool.

But the fact is, it is used as a directory tool constantly. And for finding
www.sendmail.org, www.apple.com, etc. it works perfectly well. It cannot
work for generic names of course, but in discussing the id.au space we are
talking about individual unique people, not generic names.

I would even argue that there is enough domain space out there that managed
well, it would be even more useful tool. Why shouldn't I be able to guess
the URL based on basic assumptions? Corporate/organisation, product name,
etc.

It just comes across in your statements that you deny the possibility that
some domain naming schemes can be better than others. The reasons some are
better than others (objectively) is because they provide each company with
an identity which can be easily determined without search engines/directory
structures. That is, they provide a rudimentary directory concept.

Naturally someone squatting on bind.org is an anathema to the workings of
such a system.

The only real obstacle to applying this concept to id.au is the large number
of overlapping names (eg. John Smith) and the lack of any other good way of
telling people apart.

Enough from me.

Ari Maniatis


on 1/2/2000 12:34 pm, Geoff Huston at gih§telstra.net wrote:

>> 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.
> 
> 
> Hang on, my wording was deliberately chosen
> 
> The DNS is NOT a useful directory tool
> 
> I think you are confusing this with a slightly different
> statement:
> 
> The DNS is NOT a directory
> 
> This is a different statement, and there's no doubt that
> many folk attempt to use the DNS as a directory, and
> others position themselves to take advantage of that
> assumption, and for them the DNS assumes some of the
> characteristics of a directory. But its a pretty shocking
> directory, given that entries have no qualifying attributes,
> (unless you want to interpret the hierarchy chain as an implicit
> attribute qualification set, which you can do at your own
> risk) and no ability to search  the directory in any
> meaningful way. i.e. as a directory tool the DNS has none
> of the functionality that is normally associated with
> useful directory service tools.
> 
> Geoff



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