Scarce Resources In Global Name Space

[Marc Stiegler <marcs>]

Scarce Resources In Global Name Space

A classic tragedy of the commons situation is trying to arise 
in a global name space--specifically, the name space for email 
addresses.

One of the interesting aspects of a global name space is that 
not all names are equally valuable. In particular, short names 
that map directly into Anglo-Saxon syllables are precious, scarce 
commodities.

The particular commodity for which leasing rights have been brought 
to my attention is the name "dan". This particular precious resource, 
I understand, has been assigned to Dan Spitzer, Dean's friend 
in L.A.

However, in the time since this assignment was made, AMIX has 
acquired a new employee, Dan Hite. Many people would find it 
convenient if we assigned the email name "dan" to him.

Now, I like Dan Spitzer a great deal. But it seems quite obvious 
to me, even without a free market to assess prices, that the 
total value of the precious syllable "dan" to the Xanadu/AMIX 
organization is higher if it is assigned to Dan Hite than to 
Dan Spitzer.

If we were to conclude that backward compatibility for all time 
were more important than even wildly disparate levels of current 
convenience, then I would find myself driven to using one of 
3 strategies in the allocation of global name space: 

1) Anarchist Technique: I would go to Bill and have every valuable 
name I can think of assigned to a friend of mine. This would 
waste most of the names in the name space, but it would be more 
valuable to me than allowing those names to be allocated by someone 
else (I better not tell Roger about this plan before I'm done, 
however; I'm sure Roger has more friends he could quickly map 
to email addresses than I do).

2) Socialist Technique: Appoint a Blue Ribbon committee for the 
Evaluation Of Each Candidate For A Xanadu Name, allowing for 
months of deliberation to ensure that each allocation of scarce 
name space will serve mankind well for at least a century.

3) Capitalist Technique: Have a one-time auction on all the names 
in the name space. Unfortunately, AMIX and Xanadu do not yet 
have a unified currency, since Xanadu uses Nelsons while AMIX 
uses old-fashioned Hayeks. We would have to allow the currencies 
to float to a natural exchange rate, then bid using a basket 
of currencies.

To me, it seems reasonable that the general rule should be "valuable 
names should go to employees first, except in special circumstances." 


Let me give an example of an exception. Though I have confused 
Hugh Daniels a few times with Hugh Hoover in email, and though 
I and Hugh Hoover have been confused a few times because he didn't 
receive messages I sent him, and though I have personally found 
it a real nuisance that the naming conventions don't support 
my thought processes on this matter, I believe that more people 
would be confused if we changed it than if we left it alone. 
So I'm not in favor of changing the leasing arrangements on the 
name "hugh".

Another decent policy might be a democratic (horrors!) vote: 
the use of name space that is most useful to the largest number 
of people seems reasonable to me.

Anyway, I would like to break the lease on the name "dan" and 
re-lease it to Dan Hite. Somehow, I am just sure that someone 
is going to object.

Am I correct?

--marcs