Re: A philosophical question about large directory structures

Howdy,

[Harald wrote:]
> My feeling is that it won't happen until someone creates it, and
> nobody
> will create it until someone wants to pay for it. Up front.
> 
> Who do we expect to pay?
> And why will they?

I think that, whenever we (IETF) delve into the question of "who will
pay", we've wandered out of our realm of effectiveness.

I interpret your question as:  there is a general feeling that
a unified directory service would be a Very Useful Thing, and
as finding a funding model seems to be the impediment, let's talk about
the funding model.

The problem is that protocols don't have funding models, services
do.  The IETF doesn't do services (much), it does protocols.  So,
I question what can be usefully discussed on this front before
a seemingly-useful service comes into existence (more opinions on
that, elsewhere).

Alternatively, a global directory of so-called whitepages information
may be brought into existence if it is required in order to support
some other piece of service infrastructure -- a global directory
of machine names was developed when it was needed in order to support
interconnections of machines.   This putative directory may have
very little to do with serving up e-mail addresses to the casual
user; but perhaps we should be considering instead what IS the
"killer app" of directory service information, where is this going
to be developed, and what should be done to better service it?

Leslie.

-- 

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"What are the potential gains, and               Leslie Daigle
   why do they weigh so much??!"                 [email protected]
            -- David Holmes

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