Re: [Auth]Impressions of XNS

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Norbert Bollow wrote:
> 
> Here are some impressions of XNS, see http://www.xns.org
> 
> I haven't seen their code, but apparantly they have a good,
> carefully-designed architecture, and they've implemented it in
> Java.
> 
> One aspect of XNS which makes it very interesting for DotGNU
> that it will be possible to do everything in a strictly
> peer-to-peer way.  They're planning to provide "root agencies"
> which map global names ("XNS names") to URLs, but using those
> is entirely optional to using XNS.  I'd personally consider this
> a main reason that makes me feel comfortable with the idea of
> using XNS in DotGNU.
> 
> The main problem which has so far prevented release of this code
> is that the company which has (so far) funded the development
> efforts, and which has been awarded three patents by the USPTO,
> needs to find some way to recover their investment and make a
> profit from it.  It won't work for them to simply give
> everything as a gift to the world, but on the other hand they
> really want the Free Software and Open Source communities to
> embrace XNS.  So they need to do something about those patents,
> like for example licensing them at zero cost to everyone who
> wants to use them in GPL'd code.  (BTW I think those patents
> could be successfully challenged with Prior Art, but I think
> that it would not be right for us to cooperate in any way with
> any organisation which uses patents against any kind of Free
> Software project.  For this reason I think that they need to
> freely license their patents in some way before we can start
> cooperating with XNSORG in any way.)
> 
> The company which has funded development of XNS so far is a
> small company, and they will need to justify to their investors
> whatever the decisions they make.  You can certainly imagine
> that this is not an easy decision.  It seems to be the main
> issue which is so far holding back a release of XNS.
> 


Hmmm... - XNS can be used p2p or with root services, right?

Why not charge a menial charge for root services?

Just a thought

        -Barry