Re: [9fans] 9grid.us

[Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>]

> For something
> like a 9grid, maybe you're willing to give that up in order to
> avoid creating accounts explicitly.

The accounts exist once they are used, so I think the implicit
creation is not likely to be entirely transparent.  One could consider
ephemeral userids and arrange the dump accordingly, but I think most
9grid users would prefer to have at least some permanent resources.
But maybe that's not even a requirement.  Expiry certainly would be
nice, specially to prevent denials of service.  I guess the problem is
not a new one.

In general, in a promiscuous environment, I tend to think that mapping
convenient handles to obscene^H^H^Hure userids is preferable to the
contention involved.  But one would need a proper "retirement"
procedure to free a name, which I seem to recall is part of the fossil
implementation.  After all, if boyd maps to mxyzptlk, it would
probably suffice to rename it !mxyzptlk to be sure no one acquires it
once it's retired, specially if the internal name is not readily
visible beyond the boundaries of the server.

I guess someone had better write some code, now.  It won't be me in
the immediate future, Russ, but you've certainly been extremely
helpful and encouraging.

++L

PS: Silly me, I keep thinking about issuing 9grid X.509 certificates,
but I'm loath to mention it.