It’s possible that the .io cctld is going to go away [0]. Does crates.io have a backup plan at all? Does anyone know what problems it would end up causing?
I imagine the package registry having to move domains is going to cause a ton of problems.
Frankly, it’s concerning to me that so much of the Rust ecosystem has chosen to standardize on shaky ccTLDs. The Indian Ocean Territory (.io) is a small island territory whose only inhabitants are a single military base, it is crazy to use that domain for something important. Serbia (.rs) is more stable, but they could still cut off access for non-Serbians if they wanted to.
What about stopping the bullsh*t of TLD nonsense and doing something like crates.rust-lang? It’s the most sensible solution.
I’d very much welcome a crates.io alternative that doesn’t require github and supports namespacing by username or org. The dependency on a proprietary platform rubs me the wrong way.
Namespacing by username or org is a good way to get people to download the compromised wrong crate though since barely any document will talk about that part of the name and it will sometimes change over the lifetime of a project.
Is that a problem with java? In fact, is it even a problem on github where repos are namespaced by user or org?
Forgot to mention .sh, which is also a ccTLD for a tiny island nation, and also shouldn’t be used for hosting anything that is difficult to move.
Saint Helena is in no way comparable because it’s not disputed territory. Back when Mauritius became independent the British carved out some islands for their continued colonial use, breaking (back then brand new) international law.
Saint Helena has no such connection to another country and it was uninhabited before the Dutch settled. The Brits later conquered it but even if the Dutch want it back it’d keep its autonomous territory status and therefore its own TLD, the Dutch have plenty of those.
They can still revoke its use anytime they want. Which is the main issue right?
So can any TLD holder. The rules for .org might change to disallow individuals. .com might outlaw non-profits. .net might get restricted to ISPs. There is a small, but existent, chance that all the oxygen molecules in the room I’m in are going to decide that they’ll huddle up in some corner, leaving me to suffocate. I refuse to worry about it.
If you want to be paranoid like that you can send the rust foundation some money and tell them to spend it on the .rust and .ferris gTLDs.
I seriously doubt they will actually phase it out, with such a popular TLD. They made an exception for .su, I don’t see why they wouldn’t this time as well.
If the domain .io ever gets unusable, then all it needs for Rust / creates.io is to change the respository setting in the configuration of your project to point to new location. Maybe this could be done automatically through an update of Rust tools. It will probably cause headache for automated build systems and for newcomers, but overall its not as bad of an issue as it looks like, I think.
But I agree on that it wasn’t a good idea to use .io and .rs as their backbone. It should have been .com or .org in example, where you know wouldn’t go away ever. Not a fan of country level domains for important projects.
Unlikely, and even more unlikely to not be able to be worked around by a local rust user group.
Like, the .eu restriction to only give out domains to individuals and companies within the EEA is more about having a domestic contact than anything else, EURid doesn’t care who actually uses the domain just that it has European legal representation.
