.DIR Application and the Aug. 15th Evaluation Criteria1) The need to maintain
the Internet's stability
Application: The fact that directories and in particular
industry-standards directories can improve the reliability of the Internet and reduce
the searches for inaccurate and unreliable information.
2) The extent to which
selection of the proposal would lead to an effective "proof of concept" concerning
the introduction of top-level domains in the future
Application: The .DIR proposal
adds a new concept to the Internet by appending to existing names. This new concept
could be useful in other domains as well. This could also reduce the amount of land-grab
for new domain names.
3) The enhancement of competition for registration services
Application: As new names are registered within the .DIR domain the need for quality
registration services will be needed to ensure that the directory service that will
be registered is compliant and legitimate. This is better than the existing approach
which appears to be simply "who is first."
4) The enhancement of the utility of
the DNS
Application: This proposal uses DNS to locate compliant directory services.
This again enhances the use of DNS beyond just returning an IP address.
5) The
extent to which the proposal would meet previously unmet types of needs
Application:
This proposal will allow for the creation of well-known, standardized location to
find accurate information for organizations, services, goods, and individuals. The
Internet has provided a global mechanism to find information. However, the information
is often times incorrect, duplicated, and is not available in any standard form that
could be used programmatically. By adding this new domain, organizations could provide
this information in currently defined industry standard formats and could greatly
facilitate information sharing that has only been dreamed of to date.
6)
The extent to which the proposal would enhance the diversity of the DNS and of registration
services generally
Application: We envision that all kinds of organizations and
geographic diverse uses of this new domain. We could see not only the use of foo.com.dir
as well as foo.gov.dir, and foo.co.fr.dir for example. Organizational as well as
geographic uses will be deployed. We also see the used of the .DIR to facilitate
distributed systems management. As the network infrastructure becomes more important
to how we live our lives, we believe that the use of directory-enabled management
of the systems and services will be critical to the use and security of the Internet.
7)
The evaluation of delegation of policy-formulation functions for special-purpose
TLDs to appropriate organizations
Application: This proposal delegates the policy-formulation
function to the Open Group's Directory Interoperability Forum. This is the industry
body made up of suppliers and consumers of directory technology and will have the
ultimate control of the policies of this new domain.
8) Appropriate protections
of rights of others in connection with the operation of the TLD
Application: Again,
this proposal provides a unique approach to protect the currently registered domains.
This proposal also introduces a new facility that could allow individuals, and organizations
to have the ultimate definitive control over who has access to what information.
9) The completeness of the proposals submitted and the extent to which they demonstrate
realistic business, financial, technical, and operational plans and sound analysis
of market needs
Application: We believe that we have provided a complete proposal
addressing the issues presented. Although the marketing plan has lacked a proposal
as to how this domain will be marketed, it was felt at the time of this submission
that this would not be needed. We feel there will be no need to promote .DIR just
as there was no need to promote .COM.
Final Comment
The final comment in their
recommendation states that "Novell's complete concentration on their own LDAP...",
shows a lack of understanding of the work that the industry has done to establish
an industry-standards directory service called LDAP version 3. We believe that in
order for interoperability to be achieved and for directories to be able to be used
in the support of the Internet that they be based on well accepted industry standards
directory service. Only LDAP fits that bill today. If enhancements or other technologies
emerge in this space as standards the Directory Interoperability Forum (DIF) will
address those issues. Failure to approve this proposal will only provide additional
chaos in this space with competing non standard approaches.