(Pardon me if this has already been mentioned, I haven't read all of the
messages in this thread)

The DNS system is probably the best example to work from.  It's
hierarchical and distributed.  Every system has list of "root hints"
that explicitly lists the root domain name servers on the Internet.
>From these servers, all others can be located by traversing name server
(NS) records.

So, ideally, one could host their own Squeak modules, if they desire, by
registering with either the root "SqueakMod" servers or another server
that hosts a particular SqueakMod domain that you're interested in (like
People for example).

- Stephen

> > > I think we could introduce some form of "forwarder" file 
> in order to 
> > > make the virtual
> > hierarchy
> > > distributed.
> > 
> > Interesting idea.  Although, Debian has scaled to 800 
> developers and 
> > 8000 packages using a central ftp server, so it's not clear 
> we *have* 
> > to worry about this.  Also, and I'm sure you have thought 
> of this, we 
> > surely want to leave the ability to have multiple root 
> servers listed 
> > even if we have the forwarders.
> 
> Yes of course. But do note that Debian is "flat" and we are 
> instead establishing a hierarchical namespace. I think that 
> the forwarder-idea may be more interesting in our situation. 
> And of course - these things aren't necessary at all from the 
> beginning but typically things that can be hard to introduce later on.