[dns-operations] dotless domains

[Rick Jones]

> 2. We are not limited by the status quo. While the _current_ state of
> things is that we cannot guarantee that single labels will work reliably
> in all cases, those who are putting very large sums of money into the
> process of acquiring and operating these domains (especially the .brand
> domains) will not hesitate to expend effort (and $$) to bring other
> developers up to speed. For example, in the browser it is a very simple
> matter to first append a dot to a single label and see if it resolves
> before trying the search domains.

But is that really, consistently the right thing to do?

I suppose that browsers are already more than a little bit pregnant with 
their willingness to append TLDs to single labels, but suppose someone 
happens to have a subnet with a bunch of machines named for  fruit - 
apple, pear, grape, etc. Are they going to have to go-in and configure 
their (possibly auto-updated) browsers to not append that dot so the 
resolv.conf search directive with their subdomain will still let them 
get to their apple.subdomain rather than go to apple.?

Or will they have to start typing apple.subdomain because they cannot 
shower as much incentive on browser developers as a .brand holder?

It seems like the rules for automagic completion of incomplete names 
typed into browsers are going to start to look like those for the game 
of fizbin.

rick jones
speaking for myself alone