Re: [DNSOP] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dnsop-terminology-bis-05.txt

["Paul Hoffman" <[e-mail]>]

(I'm surprised our philosophy-minded folks didn't answer this. I'll take 
a stab, acknowledging that I'm only a philosophy tourist.)

On 30 Mar 2017, at 13:41, Andrew McConachie wrote:

> If a domain name is made up of labels, and labels are made up of 
> octets, then can there be non-digital representations of domain names?

Yes. The octets in the labels can be encoded into writing systems, and 
there can be a commonly-recognized display format for the representation 
of a group of labels.

> For example, if I spray paint 'www.example' on the side of a bus, is 
> it not a domain name because it is made up of paint instead of octets?

It is a rendering (in paint, on a bus) a domain name in a 
commonly-accepted display format. Neither the paint nor the bus is the 
domain name.

Some history related to representation versus essence: 
https://essenceofbuddhism.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/what-the-finger-pointing-to-the-moon-analogy-really-means-from-zen-buddhism-the-buddha-in-the-shurangama-sutra/

> I don't see anything in this document restricting the terms to 'on the 
> wire' definitions. So I assume that the scope of 'domain name' 
> includes non-digital instantiations. Perhaps what's needed isn't so 
> much a new definition for label, but clarification on the scope of 
> these terms and their definitions.

I'm not sure that us going into the ontology of domain names would help 
someone reading the document.

--Paul Hoffman