Free Hosted DNS (LP09)

Change the Game. Give All Who Download and Install Free Network Applications the Ability to Provide Dynamic DNS Services.

This should be a part of every free-as-in-freedom network service application.

I've long maintained that the key to getting users on board with setting up their own applications and "getting into" the idea of providing services from their own machines as servers, would be to give them the sense of ownership of their own machine, and of being able to provide a sense of identity to those they know and associate with, that providing BIND and dynamic DNS services from their own machine would give them.

This would also reassert -- very strongly -- the way the Internet is supposed to work.

What I'm talking about is first registering a domain name for your server-based application (sampledomain.org), and then the application can provide users the ability to create their own domain based on that: (mydomain.sampledomain.org)

If, for instance, all the decentralized file search applications (often called "P2P filesharing") provided a switch to turn on the ability to give others a dynamic DNS hosted off of their own machine's DNS, the entire discourse would be fundamentally shifted, and you would instantly have a keyed-in constituency in all those "consumers" who presently just turn on a shared directory of files.

The owners of their own machines-turned-servers would all get a taste of freedom in being able to provide names to others, and all of those people who use their free service would get the idea that this application is giving this to them -- and they can always download the application and do the same on their machines!

Get past the concern about anonymity that's associated with the particular category of "P2P filesharing" apps -- this changes the game, and you can always provide the same "principled" features (users should be able to turn on or turn off file serving), except now for Dynamic DNS (provide the option to enter your top level domain name into a slot or not; provide an option to turn on or turn off hosting dynamic domain names).

But this dynamic DNS option should be a part of every single free-as-in-freedom server application that an individual can download and host off of their own machine, not just decentralized search engines/"P2P filesharing" apps.

I cannot stress this enough. Please start with a mission to make every free network application empower users with the ability to provide this service through their own machine, to any of their peers on the Internet.

There is a very strong argument to be made for this -- I just can't articulate it very well yet, as I've just discovered this conference this morning.

I'm hoping that you geeks will get it immediately. It's a no-brainer once you see it. And it might be just what free software needs to give their goals an edge in the network services space, that is enormously politically compelling as well as technically.

Seth Johnson