Actually, I think that it might be interesting to look at the possibility of putting Root DNS on the Route-Servers. Why? True. However, the nice thing about a RNS on an XP is that the RNS is one hop from EVERY provider at the XP, and is independent of OTHER providers. I agree that the XP management shouldn't manage the RNS. However, I would be QUITE comfortable with MERIT running it on the RS or adjacent machine. <I'm about to projectile vomit all over my keyboard> I don't quite know how to do this without insulting the nice folks at Merit (sorry Elise), but I can't see any possible rationalization for throwing tax dollars in that particular direction for this sort of service. We've just spent a lot of time and effort making it possible to completely remove central "authorities", like Merit, from the operation of the net. The next target towards a decentralized network is the InterNIC followed by the RNSs. That bizarre idea about alternative name hierarchies is actually an extremely attractive suggestion, although I had a bit of a problem keeping down my dinner when I first read it. Although I agree that ALL RNSs shouldn't be run by a single organization, I would not have a problem with the RNSs at the XP's being run by the RADB group. The expertise required for DNS is an almost totally disjoint subset of the expertise required to handle name service. There's really no reason whatsoever to toss these together. In fact, I find the entire idea of putting general purpose machines at the exchange points to be questionable. The whole point of having an "Internet" is so that we can utilize services throughout the Internet. If we have to start placing RNSs at exchange points, we've seriously lost sight of that goal. As long as there are -enough- of them, and they are reasonable well distributed, there is no value add, and in fact, there is a considerable value subtract.