On Wed, Jul 06, 2005 at 08:52:09AM +0930, Mark Newton wrote:
Stipulated. But whose problem *is* that?
The users will make it our problem, if we don't get this sorted out soon.
It seems to me that "this" is *already* sorted out, and that all of this discussion has been about whether to invent new problems, rather than about whether to solve existing problems.
Sorry to hear you feel that way, Mark. I'm not entitled to have on-topicness opinions here, but Brad is, and he hasn't told me to shut up yet. ;-)
Alternate root servers exist for one plain simple reason: To give their operators their own little playpen of TLDs they can mess around with without ICANN getting in their faces. People who don't want to own and operate TLDs don't actually give a crap about that reason.
These operators have been pushing this idea for 6 or 7 years now. Frankly I'm of the view that if the "benefits" of alternate roots were in any way desirable *to anyone other than those who operate them* we'd probably all be using them by now.
But we aren't. And probably never will.
I dunno, The China Proposition seemed fairly believable to *me*...
If we probably never will then the alternate root operators can either stop flogging their dead horse and shuffle off into the sunset, or they can continue to pollute mailing lists with useless discussions about whether they have a right to exist every time the concept is mentioned from now until eternity, just like they do now.
Note that I am *not* an alt-root operator, nor do I have any direct or indirect interest in any of them, except that some of my routers are configured to resolve off of them.
Right now, on July 5th 2005, "The whole alternate-root ${STATE}horse" has absolutely zero operational impact on any network operators. So could y'all please perhaps take it to USEnet where it belongs and let this list get back to normal?
My appraisal is that it has about as much direct percentage impact on North American networks as IPv6 and Multicast. And, as Brad notes, there's a believable case to be made that it *might become* an issue to this audience. All those who disagree or don't object to being caught with their pants down are welcome to kill the thread, which I courteously retitled and unthreaded at the outset. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Designer +-Internetworking------+----------+ RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates | Best Practices Wiki | | '87 e24 St Petersburg FL USA http://bestpractices.wikicities.com +1 727 647 1274 If you can read this... thank a system administrator. Or two. --me