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stacks-network / stacks

Overview of Bitcoin's Stacks layer.
https://www.stacks.co/
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Confusing BNS wording in Whitepaper #374

Open freethejazz opened 6 years ago

freethejazz commented 6 years ago

In section 3.1:

As shown in Figure 2, in BNS the information for top-level domains (namespaces) is registered on a root blockchain. Entries for TLDs can point to other blockchains that store data for domains registered on that TLD. The root blockchain can also be used for defining TLDs, in which case the TLD entry points to the same blockchain. In DNS, the DNS root servers, TLD servers, and authoritative servers are outside the trust zone of the end-user, where the trust zone is defined as either a local machine or local network and can include a node controlled (and trusted) by the end-user in the wide-area.

By my reading, it seems like the bolded TLDs should actually be domains: Sentence 1: TLDs are registered on a root blockchain Sentence 2: TLDs can point to other blockchains for domains registered to that TLD Sentence 3: TLDs can be registered on a root blockchain, in which case TLD entries point to the same blockchain

As is, the first half of sentence 3 is redundant and the second half conflicts with the material just presented because sentence 1 and 2 specify that TLDs registered on the root blockchain can point to other blockchains.

This may be a moot point because it seems like cross-chain support is being deemphasized, based on a conversation with @muneeb-ali.

Either way, this should be reworded to resolve the inconsistency or deemphasize the cross-chain features.

freethejazz commented 6 years ago

Rereading the original copy, I can see the difference in the words register and define used in the first and third sentences. If defining a TLD means the same as storing data for domains registered on that TLD, it might be best to keep that longer form description in the next sentence, too.