Why do we even think about this? Custom TLDs are a farce, a way to shake companies and nonprofits out of money without any added value, neither technologically, nor in terms of marketing/communication. Everybody knows that, right? Didn't we all conclude that when the ICANN announced it? Aren't "we", the hacker crowd, supposed to be above this?
I agree. Further, regarding this bit from the "Why?" section of the README:
> Okay, this is kind of a vanity TLD, but we freaking build the web every day... Shouldn't we have a TLD that JS hackers control?
Why are "JS hackers" being targeted specifically? Why not also Ruby, Python, PHP, .NET, and Perl hackers? Why not also HTML and CSS hackers? Why not also designers (.psd perhaps)? Why not dozens of new TLDs so that everyone could have a domain with the file extension of their choosing?
I'll tell you why: because arbitrarily polluting the top-level namespace is something we learn not to do.
Sure, but there's no .rb ccTLD, and since 4-, 5-, and 6- letter gTLDs exist, we could certainly have Kickstarter campaigns for .php, .html, .css, .perl, etc.
Ummm, the country of Paraguay already has the .py cctld, and they are somewhat picky about who they hand domains out to (residents and nationals only basically), which is why you don't see a bunch of programmers with vanity domains that are python in-jokes.
This is exactly why I both love and fear the power of Kickstarter. It enables half-thought out ideas (claimed as "projects") to have a way to sucker good people out of their money.
Pragmatically speaking, the new gGTLDs are likely to fail. So why not avoid that expensive bullet?
Aside: Has anyone ever run across a real functioning site that uses the .travel suffix? That is a precursor gTLD that went live in 2006. Presumably there are a lot more people interested in travel than there are in javascript.
I tried doing this before the rules were public, the reasons why I stopped
1. Two-letter TLDs are reserved for countries.
2. The $200k isn't the actual cost, it is only what you need to pay for an initial review, you won't get the money back if something is found to be wrong with your application or if they dislike your TLD.
This is extremely stupid. would it be mongodb.js? or mongodb.c++ mongodb.oss mongodb.foss mongodb.nosql or mongodb.webtwozeroishstuff ? We don't need more fragmentation.
I guess the next thing they want after .biz is .cool .startup .awesome and .hip . This is not how TLDs (should) work!
I guess it would be mongo.db. But it really should be none of those. How would anyone create/enforce rules that would accurately limit the usage to what they are proposing? What is the validation for whether a project is or is not a JavaScript or NodeJS project?
This is extremely stupid to start a post with "This is extremely stupid". It adds no value and is simply offensive. Only extremely stupid people write that way.
While it would be cool to have a .js TLD, that 200k would be better spent developing a system that doesn't revolve around a centralized entity to manage DNS.
That was my first thought, too - $200k could fund the writing of a lot of really good JavaScript, which would benefit the JS community (and the web at large) a lot more than a vanity TLD.
I don't know why people are so eager to shoot this down. I think it's perfectly feasible. So what if two-letter TLDs are reserved for countries? JavaScript has already made the jump from the browser to the server (and, soon, to the kernel): the world map is the logical next step. Yes, I am talking about a real-world JavaScript nation, whose banner shall unite web 2.0 ninjas, wizards and pirates (not the rockstars, though, those use Ruby) from all over the world. And the children of this new utopia shall be taught JavaScript as their native language, fulfilling mankind's age-old ideal of JavaScript Everywhere.
I know about both issues but what I would like to mention is more the initiative of a Kickstarter campaign for this kind of developer’s common concerns.
I really love the idea to ask everyone to solve everyone’s problems.
One more reason it's not a good idea: For example if .html was a top level domain, it would be harder to know if you're looking at a domain or a file.
You could still deduce it from the surrounding strings, but why do you want to complicate what's working perfectly as it is?
How about .exe, .app, .txt, .htm... maybe ultimately petition to allow punctuation and forward slash in domain names.
The concept of files in URLs is an illusion. A bare '/' may serve JS content and a /test.css may serve a JPG image. The path is just a string with no special meaning.
yep, I registered a .pm domain. I guess the most people haven't heard of Saint Pierre and Miquelon at all. Btw, the domains are still managed by the AFNIC.
As many others have pointed out, two character gTLDs are not allowed, as they are reserved for countries and super-national entities like .eu.
Also, Kickstarter is a terrible model for something like this. Kickstarter is for funding a single creative project. People are giving money to someone they trust to be able to execute a project, for that specific project. A gTLD needs to be run, constantly, for the forseeable future; and thus needs to be a real business, with real investment, not a one-shot project like Kickstarter is designed to fund.
Not totally sure how the fundraising process for a TLD works. Can you buy whatever TLD you want? Can I get david.shaw? That would be awesome.
The problem is that even if you get 'jsfounder' status with your donation, there's no guarantee you'll actually get anything other than your name on a petition.
It's a cool idea, and I support lots and lots of TLDs (as they allow creative domain names other than .com et al), but this seems like it might be a sneaky way to raise some capital without having to do anything.
edit: furthermore, do these passionate individuals plan to not organize the petition if they aren't funded?
What happened with .app TLD initiative? I remember they were collecting funds and even offered domain pre-registration, but now their website is down: http://dotappapp.com/
A .js domain would more confusing, than helpful in my eyes. Also, the resistence against domain seizure is more important than 'coolness' today. The tld's .ch and .is are good picks for this purpose.
I have a better idea - if they do not let use get a 2-letter TLD, then how about we get .json ? If you want, my twitter handle is @json and I own json dot com , so we could do this for FREE by using subdomain.json.com to start
