Re: [Gnu-arch-users] How do do a namespace server right

[James Blackwell]

Tom Lord said all of the ">" stuff, including:
> They _have_ a de facto namespace authority.   Just now, for example, 
> the top-of-the-page entry on freshmeat is "Wikindx".   It's an
> authoritative name for that project in the sense that no future FM
> entry will displace it.   Should the project make a big splash, the
> /. and Newsforge articles will use that name.  Sure enough, just by
> coincidence, this project is hosted at sourceforge and called
> "wikindx" there.

Yes, but thats only because the barrier to entry for the OSDN properties
is much too expensive. We get around that if we make an ANS that is as
simple to put up as a bittorrent tracker. There are hundreds, if not
thousands of those trackers -- way too many for the RIAA to reasonably
chase down.

> I could borrow some cycles on gnuarch.org and set up a registry for
> project names just fine.   Might take only a day or two even if I had
> to code the thing up from scratch.   Might take a week or two for you
> to tie this into the supermirror.

Count me in. The scripting stuff I've put in place is almost due for me
replace with something less embarrassing. At this point its all a
'collection of neat ideas I can implement individually in less than 20
minutes'.



> But without /., FM, Newsforge ....   it'd be spitting in the wind.

That logic fails on the surface by virtue of the fact that at one point
they were independant. 

The difference is that we don't have that huge alliance (yet)

> The anarchic philosophy of design has to be carried through as
> archness starts to influence all the kinds of ancillary services that
> get built up around it.
>
> I fear we're already in an underdog position.   No, I don't mean
> underdogs relative to OSDN -- that's a given.   I mean that we have to
> watch out for efforts that may arise which aim to define themselves as
> the global "arch hub" and which may not respect the
> egalitarian/anarchic ideals --- efforts that want to out-OSDN OSDN
> itself.

Tom, we're not playing a zero sum game here. We don't have to end up in
first place; we just have to keep running hard enough that those in 

> (Incidentally, VA Software's financial's aside, OSDN will not be
> allowed to fail anytime soon.  Instead, worst case, they'll get pushed
> around and come to be dominated by a small handful of big
> advertisers.   OSDN's demographics are too much a source of power to
> let rot on the vine.)

If you look at their older 10Qs, you can tell that they're practically
out of money. 

Looking into my crystal ball, my personal prediction is that within 12
months the following things will happen:

1. Source forge the software becomes just plain free software.

2. OSDL "buys" sourceforge the repository and freshmeat

3. Slashdot goes independant

4. Thinkgeek goes under


[Long description of an ASN by yours truly snipped]

> I wonder if you aren't missing the concept of "hats" or "universes".

I graduated high school in the top 2/3 of my class. You tell me what
"hats" and "universes are"

> One way to deal with conflicting names is to allow a user to wear
> mutliple hats and change between them.   Crudely-speaking, to swap around
> part of the "locations" subdir of .arch-params.
>
> Instead of someone setting up a namespace in their basement -- they
> can set up a "universe of discourse" in their basement of which the
> namespace is one part.

I must be misunderstanding you, because it sounds to me like you're
proposing yet another namespace component.

-- 
James Blackwell          Please do not send me carbon copies of mailing
Smile more!              list posts. Such mail is unsolicited. Thank you!

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