This is a democracy.  It is a democracy with hard coded rules that we can vote to change.  If all the Narwhals go extinct, and all the narwhal names go unused we can deal with that in the future.  You know, for when we really need the name molecatcher.  I see no need to mess with the narwhals expected business model at this point.

It brings up a very important point though.  Registered names are by definition a scarce resource as they can only be used by one person at a time.  When we register a name we are effectively staking a claim to them.  Common law for claims of previously unowned property required both enclosure, and development.  Otherwise the property went back to its original unowned state.  The blockchain securely encloses this scarce resource for us, but does not enforce development.  What means of enforcing development would the community find palatable?

One model that springs to mind is that of a black hole.  They are supposedly constantly losing mass due to hawking radiation.  For a more massive black hole that is not really an issue, as it will take billions of years to waste away.  For a micro black hole this become an issue though.  If it evaporates too much it will vanish.  Could we do something similar with names.  Require a certain balance, to be parked on names that is burned as a fee at a certain time increment  Perhaps just enforce a certain minimum fee burned within a time frame.  If an account name does not have the fee it is purged from the blockchain.  This would dramatically reduce squatting.

Perhaps the answer is to split account names from domain names.  Require that domain names are linked to actual ip addresses.  This could be as simple as requiring domain name owner keys to broadcast signed transactions to the network every month or so.  Adding a small amount of work and cost to maintaining a name.  We could try to go farther and require the mapped IP to be provably under the control of the owner key of the domain.  Perhaps embedding this signed message into the page itself.  Then we would want to limit the number of domains that could be assigned to a single IP. 

While there is no reason to believe that the large aquatic animal is lying to us, I think we should disabuse ourselves of the notion that if we lay claim to something we can own it forever without putting forth any further effort.  If all it takes is laying a claim, then I own the Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and all its moons.  In fact I own the Sun, and I need all of you to stop taking advantage of my property.

Quote from: bytemaster on June 14, 2015, 05:43:19 pm

Here is the deal, "BitShares" as not a legal entity and cannot "own" IP.    I personally do not recognize IP, but most people do including some of those who have contributed to BTS source code.

The public domain is the legal entity that owns BitShares IP. It's a very real legal entity and you are infringing on its rights by trying to alienate its enjoyment of the intellectual properties it owns.

Beside your stance regarding BitShares legal status is inconsistent and changes depending on the point you are trying to make. It's not a legal entity when it's about stripping it from it's intellectual property. But when you are pitching BitShares 2.0 BitShares is a well defined entity that can be the legal recipient of a software license with all the guarantees that this implies. That doesn't add up. If BitShares is not a legal entity, there is no way that you can make a software licence that will legally entitle BitShares to unlimited use of Graphene since BitShares is something that can't quite be define legally. That means that the exclusive license is a castle of cards that won't stand in court.

So let's be clear here and stop sugar coating.

BitShares not being a legal entity doesn't own the intellectual property but that doesn't mean that the core developers own it instead. As per the original license under which BitShares was released, the property rights to the work belong to the public domain. Authors retain only the moral rights.

BitShares not being a legal entity cannot be protected by any software license whatsoever, so all the reassuring guarantees of exclusive and illimited licensing are hollow promises that can be revoked on a whim by Cryptonomex and won't stand in court.

Regarding ownership of intellectual property, there are three cases out of which two are straightforward:
- All the code and ideas that are implemented in the code of the current BitShares project belong to the public domain as per the terms of the Unlicence under which it has been released. There is no way back on that, so Cryptonomex can't claim any particular rights on that code and set of ideas, and can't patent anything that makes the current BitShares protocol what it is since BitShares stands as prior art. The public keeps all rights of reuse of the existing code and owes nothing to Cryptonomex regardless of the claims they may make.

- All the code and ideas that are developped independently by Cryptonomex using its own funds and its own resources belongs to Cryptonomex and they may use and license it as they see fit.

- For all the code and ideas that hasn't been put in the public domain but has been developed prior to the incorporation of Cryptonomex or by individuals not affiliated to Cryptonomex at that time, and in particular when it could be shown that all funds meant to fund the development of BitShares hadn't been used yet, the ownership isn' clear. It may belong to its respective authors or to BitShares and therefore the public domain depending on exact circumstances. Although there really isn't much legal guidance about that case since BitShares isn't a legal entity and hasn't signed non-compete and disclosure of conflict of interests agreements, it would still be easy to show that appropriation by Cryptonomex of code which development was funded by the public for the purpose of releae in the  public domain would be unethical, so the outcome of an eventual judgement on the matter is anything but clear.