Ownership of Names (was Re: Public identifiers and topic maps)

[david at megginson.com]

W. Eliot Kimber writes:

 > So I maintain my assertion that names, not just name spaces, are
 > ownable things.  If this were not the case, Compaq would not have
 > spent 3.something million dollars to buy the name
 > "www.altavista.com".  QED.

If you wanted to express the point formally, you could say that each
unique combination of

  { namespace, time }

or

  { namespace, time, name }

is ownable.  Eliot owns drmacro.com at 00:00:01 GMT 28 September 1998
(and for a while before and after).

Vanity of vanities, dust to dust, and all that.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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