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.self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

hccf.onmy.cloud

151–160 of 410 posts

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#151
I don't understand the naming scheme, or the apparent lack of it. I half expected it to be some sort of UUID which would at least makes sense. At one per person for 7 billion people that's a little under 33 bits. Make it a nice round 40 for a bit of future proofing (the scheme doesn't need to live forever) and to make a bit of space internally and that's 5 words from a 256-word list. That would seem to make a lot more sense then first-come, first-serve on something as easy to abuse as .self.

However, perhaps more relevantly, it isn't clear why this needs a TLD and all the hassle associated with a tld when it could just as easily be attached to any convenient domain name lying around that you have access to, such as, oh, say, onmy.cloud.

Then again I have this objection to almost all TLDs. But I'm not sure I'm wrong.

At the very least if you want to show ICANN that you mean business I would strongly suggest just doing it on onmy.cloud, and tell people that if you get the .self you'll transparently migrate their onmy.cloud domain on to .self when you get it. Nothing says "I can do this" like actually doing it.

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think of it as a similar model to ISRG and LetsEncrypt. In that case it was started by an institution (mozilla) with a lot of heft in the area (mozilla's CA program is one of the most broadly used) and was backed by other orgs (google) that had a vested interest in it's success. I'd be interested to hear which potential sponsors you see in a similar situation here? > rule of one person per subdomain What is the pla…

> In that case it was started by an institution (mozilla) with a lot of heft in the area (mozilla's CA program is one of the most broadly used) and was backed by other orgs (google) that had a vested interest in it's success. I'd be interested to hear which potential sponsors you see in a similar situation here? We are reaching out to companies who operate in the self-hosted space, academia, ISPs, registars, as well…

To be honest it feels like these answers boil down to "we feel it'd be nice if this existed but we have no actual answers as to how to get it done".

---

To stick with your comparison: when letsencrypt and ISRG launched they had actual answers for how to deal with the hard challenges in their space:

A) how to get included in a trust roots (crossigning with IdenTrust at first and the knowledge and expertise of how to get included in the longer term)

B) Automated domain validation in a standardized way (ACME)

C) Long term commitments of sponsorships to ensure people could trust it would stick around

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I wish you the best of luck, but I think this might have needed to bake a bit longer before publicizing.

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#154
post #110

The reason why this won't work is right there, in the original link itself. They're allowing comments and obviously the first thing there is a scam. No way any goodwill on the Internet is going to prosper. Not anymore.

Scam comment deleted.

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently nobody cares that .af is now funding the Taliban

The terms of using that tld say it must comply with Sharia law pretty strict and apparently the Minister of that agency doesnt care that .af is a domain hack for “as fuck” in the west

In other words, he doesn't give a fuck

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#156
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only mistake was not putting all US domains under .us, now the US has an an exorbitant privilege to print and enforce rules on new TLDs.

What do you mean by "US domains?" Domains registered by US citizens? Hosted in the US (in which case does that include territories)? Regardless of the definition, I don't see an easy way to do this, nor a reason to, since domains can change hands (and hosts) across countries.

Domains that fall under the jurisdiction of the US? The domains themselves not the websites they point to? Everything under .games is controlled by the US government, the German government gets .games.de instead. To be fair it should be .games.us and .games.de (or .spiele.de)

Even gTLDs using other languages, like .kaufen, are under US jurisdiction. A German website selling to German customers using a .kaufen domain is forced to abide by US law as well as German law or loses the domain. Using a .de domain they would only have to abide by German law. That's unfair that the US government gets to stick its grubby fingers into every TLD that isn't a country code.

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#157
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a commons-pollution problem. Are we going to have to start thinking of every word with a dot in the middle as a potential name? IMHO, a new gTLD is justifiable only when there's some concrete differentiator attached to it, e.g. .local indicating mDNS, or .it indicating "Italy" So the new gTLD round is open right now, we're getting more TLDs whether we like it or not. Our goal is to make one that has features b…

It just feels a bit like you've decided to solve the hardest possible side quest first. Everything else on your roadmap could have been built and shipped in the universe that exists, and then if down the road it's working, you could have aimed for your own TLD. Instead you're putting the TLD first and any of the actual functionality that end users might want afterwards.

That is a fair criticism, however I would say that the reason we are going for the TLD now is because now is the only time we can do it. The last round of TLD applications was in 2012, so if we don't apply now, it could be a veeery long time before the opportunity comes around again. We are a new org and our goal is to build functionality in parallel with the ICANN application which will likely take years to resolve.

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% apparently for .tk. I also remember .tv windfall, which is 8-9% of their GDP.

The .ai TLD is some tiny island with a few thousand people

.io is (British) Indian Ocean (Territory).

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#159
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just feels a bit like you've decided to solve the hardest possible side quest first. Everything else on your roadmap could have been built and shipped in the universe that exists, and then if down the road it's working, you could have aimed for your own TLD. Instead you're putting the TLD first and any of the actual functionality that end users might want afterwards.

That is a fair criticism, however I would say that the reason we are going for the TLD now is because now is the only time we can do it. The last round of TLD applications was in 2012, so if we don't apply now, it could be a veeery long time before the opportunity comes around again. We are a new org and our goal is to build functionality in parallel with the ICANN application which will likely take years to resolve.

Are you working on the not-TLD parts in parallel? If you don't get the TLD, do you plan to launch on a more traditional domain?

The marketing stuff makes it look like the TLD is your main focus.

Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting

#160
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those were the days indeed. A big part for me is probably because I was a teen at the time with little responsibility, but getting to be a part of the wild west days of the internet was a magical experience.

Magical indeed! I once mailed $70 cash (multiple months of allowance) to someone to code a MVP of something I wanted to build. They ripped me off and disappeared. And… that’s when I decided I needed to learn to code!

Somewhere out there is a developer telling this exact same story. ‘I once agreed to build an MVP for a kid who promised to mail me cash. Never showed up. And THAT’S when I decided to get a real job.’
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