<nettime> G.Cook: homework or self delusion? Re: More Homework

[owner-nettime-l@Desk.nl (by way of Pit Schultz <pit@contrib.de>)]

[
a) The Namespace wrestling again.. it would be good to go to
the newsgroup now. it's available on http://www.dejanews.com
and at news://news.thing.at/alt.nettime - thank you! ]
b) majordomo is currently bouncing back some of your mails, 
we 'll fix that soon.. 
/pit]

Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 10:22:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gordon Cook <cook@netaxs.com>
To: MediaFilter <mf@mediafilter.org>
cc: nettime-l@Desk.nl
Subject: homework or self delusion? Re: <nettime> More Homework
In-Reply-To: <1340239845-2476207@MediaFilter.org>

Paul Garrin makes the following unsubstantiated claims: Given the fact
that selling content on the web is not a feasable
strategy, especially with non-commercial content that we tend
to generate, the economic potential of Name.Space became the
most viable strategy--as opposed to selling ads on nettime--
or worse...and a realistic one.  And it is realized. People like
it a lot and are using it. 

Cook: Really? Let's look at what it is that they are using. What benefits
are they deriving from it? Can I enter a name.space name and expect to see
it resolved any where beyond the .1% of name servers in your pirate
network? That is the REALITY you presently face.A minute self referential
community reachable only by other community members.

Garrin: It just now needs to be globally recognized and more people will
join as they see the new addresses in use. 

Cook: no kidding -- why not be honest about what it will take to be
globally recognized?   You have going against you the US Government and
the internet society, and WIPO, and ITU, and the world trademark
organization. And because your intentions are pure their positions will
collapse.

Garrin: The infrastructure is in place now and is fully functional.
there are 13 nameservers running on 9 routes in 5 countries
with Poland, Sweden and Latvia to join in the next 6-8 weeks.

Cook: tell the truth and admit that such infrastructure guarantees an
address that is unreachable by 99.9% of the internet. Why? Because
name.space is not now and never will be in the root name servers. Since
this is the case, if someone wants to help the arts or the electronic arts
in particular, such a person is much better advised to send a contribution
DIRECTLY to an arts organization rather than to you for an electronic
bumper sticker that can work only in a tiny self referential community.
I assume people here are interested in being able to reach the entire
internet with their domain name?

Garrin:  Name.Space has prevailed in gaining wide acceptance of a
decentralized, public domain (international) toplevel namespace.  The over
400 top level categories carried on the name.space system were suggested
by the public via the form on the name.space website.

Cook: we have here another unsubstantiated assertion of the previous
variety. You never did answer my original question Paul -- namely what
basis you had for asserting that comments favorable to name.space were a
major proportion of the replies received by the NOI. And now again you
assert wide acceptance defined as 400 categories thiought up by 40 million
internet users.

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