Jim, Is it worth considering a method by which there could be more flexible expansion of the number of potential TLD's? I know the prevailing thought is that we must put a stake in the ground, but any constraining factor could have negative potential. Gene Marsh Diebold Incorporated -----Original Message----- From: Jim Fleming [mailto:JimFleming at doorstep.unety.net] Sent: Monday, April 20, 1998 5:51 PM To: 'Berislav Todorovic' Cc: arin-council at arin.net; BBURR at ntia.doc.gov; ietf at ietf.org; Ira_C._Magaziner at oa.eop.gov; tld-wg at ripe.net Subject: Growing from 256 to 2048 TLDs On Monday, April 20, 1998 5:45 PM, Berislav Todorovic[SMTP:BERI at etf.bg.ac.yu] wrote: <snip> @ @The scheme you proposed, on the other hand, has several deficiencies. @First (the minor one) - the table is constrained to 256 TLDs - how ca @you predict that it won't be more than 256 TLDs in the future? Like Brian @Carpenter said in the RFC 2058, "the principle of constant change is @perhaps the only principle of the Internet that should survive @indefinitely". @ Thanks for the well written response. I will try to reply to each of your points. As you note, the following accommodates 256 TLDs. aaaaaTTT.TTTTTbbb.bbbbbbbb.bbbbbbbb In the IPv8 Plan, we support 2,048 TLDs. That looks like... aaaaaTTT.TTTTTTTT.bbbbbbbb.bbbbbbbb The extra bits get added to the right of the TTTTs... Applying this to the scheme I suggested, each of the existing TLDs in the initial group of 256 would be allowed to ADD 7 more TLDs at some point in the future. This will bring the number to 2,048. Here is more information as well as a list of the current IPv8 TLDs. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/03_23_98-2.htm http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/unir.txt - Jim Fleming Unir Corporation IBC, Tortola, BVI -------- Logged at Tue Apr 21 01:10:38 MET DST 1998 ---------