2004.01.15 16:37 "Re: [Tiff] http://www.libtiff.org/", by Mike Williams

> What was the exact sequence of events when the domain registration was lost?

The way I heard it, the company which actually paid for the libtiff.org registration allowed the domain to lapse. The domain was put in a temporary "holding" state. The maintainers of libtiff were unable to acquire the domain while it was in the "holding" state and had no leverage to retrieve it. Apparently the domains are given out in a "first dibs" fashion since it seems that this other company snatched it up as soon as it came out of the "holding" state. More than likely they have advance registrations set up for lots of interesting domain names.

Unless someone was at fault during the time it was in the "holding state", I doubt there is much that can be done, but IANAL.

Obviously the company used predatory tactics since they immediately populated libtiff.org with the original material.

But this is par for the course it seems these days. It is quite enlightening going back through a bookmark list from 3 or 4 years ago and seeing how many domains have disappeared and been picked up by domain marketeers.

A quick google shows around 74,000 hits for libtiff, so the site is potentially very lucrative. Unfortunately this could suffocate libtiff. If he is forced to remove the copy of the site contents then libtiff quickly loses an obvious presence on the web.

It might be best to move over to sourceforge as the next obvious place to look for open source software - that would give a new web address to be included in files which in time will become the first round of hits returned by search engines. Then whoever ends up with libtiff.org should end up with dwindling hits and in a year or two will let it lapse (or go for something someone feels comfortable coughing up for to hand over to the maintainers) and can be redirected to sourceforge.

TTFN

Mike

Maintenance-free: When it breaks, it can't be fixed.