Special-use TLDs is the official name, according to someone or other attached to DNS. I'd rate that good enough.
Afaik, there is actually no coherent name for these naming system meant to compete with DNS. Arguably, the most logical approach would be to genericize the DNS trademark and accept the resulting ambiguity, but that's not realistic. In places, I've used terms like name service, and similar, because it's largely unambiguous how Tor would use a naming scheme. I'd personally consider calling Namecoin or GNS simply "name systems" to be an exaggeration though, maybe "server name consistency system" or something. I don't think this really impacts the spec since the DNS terminology is well defined.
On Mon, 2015-09-28 at 15:32 -0300, hellekin wrote:
On 09/27/2015 02:47 PM, Jeff Burdges wrote:
This is the first of two torspec proposals to help Tor work with Sepcial-Use TLDs, like the GNU Name system or NameCoin. The second part will be an anycast facility. - Jeff
Jeff, I'd be careful using DNS (as in Ze DNS) vocabulary in specifications that are not concerned with, well, the Domain Name System. The DNS should be considered like SMTP or HTTP: its own protocol with its own rules, yada yada.
A TLD (Top-Level Domain) therefore is only TLD when it's used with the DNS root servers. You cannot talk about "alternate Domain Name Systems (DNS) providers", since DNS is unique, global, and served by the official DNS root servers. However, you can certainly mention "alternate global name systems", and choke a suit or three by being legitimately precise to the point you might be considered arrogant (but thoughtful) in doing so.
I'll wait for the next version of this draft and a bit more available time for further comments. Glad you're joining the club of polishing text to speak to genuine volunteers in making the Internet cool again. ;o)
== hk
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