On 19-Feb-99 Greg Skinner wrote:
> Also, it seems to me there's been a fair amount of objection to stiff
> requirements for operating a TLD registry. Adding more TLDs would
> certainly raise the bar, in terms of processing and bandwidth
> requirements. In such an environment, the well-heeled companies will
> be much more able to operate TLD registries than the struggling
> entrepreneurs. We might very well wind up with only a few large
> companies as registries, because the others just won't be able to
> survive financially.
It has been shown that a registry with well over 200,000 registered names can
be operated offering names for free (and indeed providing additional services
other than just domain delegation, including url redirection, dynamic dns, etc,
even email services, not to mention the number of mailing lists they operated
for public benefit) on a very limited budget funded by limited advertising
revenue on the website and donations/sponsorships and with totally volunteer
staffing. And this was a relatively un-cordinated effort (and it was this
uncordination that ended up being their downfall).
With better management, all the senior staff could of been paid full time, and
again, with still offering names for free, and collecting only small fees for
enhanced services.
I believe that there would be a great market for a free TLD and for low cost
TLDs, in the $0 to $8/yr range. If ML.org had received an average of just $1/yr
for each registered name there would of been no problems at all.
The cost to operate is minimal, I don't know where you are getting that more
TLDs would increase that requirement, but I don't see how it would be true at
the registry level.
I have a system ready to go now, and will be testing it soon in a 3rd level
domain registry. Perhaps after operating for 6 months I'll post the specs of
what it took to get it operational, which will surprise some, and not surprise
others.
----------------------------------
E-Mail: William X. Walsh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 19-Feb-99
Time: 16:12:30
----------------------------------
"We may well be on our way to a society overrun by hordes
of lawyers, hungry as locusts."
- Chief Justice Warren Burger, US Supreme Court, 1977
