[wg-c] Re: MHSC Position Paper (unavailable), and your comments

[Eric Brunner <brunner@world.std.com>]

Thank you for your suggestions concerning your data format choices and
the relation, if any, with a version of a browser.

I don't think I understand the answers you offer to the questions I asked,
so in the interests of readability I'll retain the interlinear form but
summarize what I can.

>> Could you (in plain text form, please) expand on how Kent's
>> proposal is avoidably complex and over specified?
>
>As far as being overly complex, do a staffing analysis...

Apparently you've already done a staffing analysis. Even if it is a back
of an envelop, please share the data.

You offered the remark that mutual secondaries (the second part of your
remark is below) offer sufficient mechanisms to obviate the need for
those described in Kent Crispin's proposal.

I asked (1st part)

>> If secondary nameservers are a solution ... (consistency of a cached
namespace and conflicting claims of authoritative nameservice)

You replied:

>Cache corruption is a configuration issue these days and not germane ...

I asked (2nd part)

>> Do you expect Paul Vixie to endorse the claim that mutual secondaries
>> solves the problem presented by two (or more) simultenious assertions
>> to authoritative nameserver status? I don't, but I could be wrong.
>
>I don't expect Paul to endorse anything but strict hierarchy, as he always
>has, religiously. I believe that, as he gets jerked around with
>f.root-servers.net, he will eventually come around to a different view, but
>I do not presume to predict what that view might become. I watch those
>developments with interest.

Assuming the correctness of your assertion that cache errors has no
relationship to the issue of authoritative server determination in the
presence of two (or more) simultanious assertions by distinct entities
to authoritative status for a domain, if only for a moment, how is your
answer responsive to the question of whether Paul Vixie would agree
with your original claim?

Does your meaning of "mutual secondaries" mean you wish to see WG-C
recommend a policy to ICANN which is inconsistent with the operational
practice of the top-level of the deployed system?

If you don't want to venture an opinion on whether or not Paul will
agree with the substance of your claim of sufficiency of mechanism,
or if you think Paul is the wrong person to ask, just say so. Either
answer will suffice.

Next I asked a scaling question about your point that some policy is not
required because "the customers [can] take over the registry". This is
the second half of your remark that the mechanisms described in Kent
Crispin's proposal are obviated by those you cited.

I understand your reply to be that you are only considering the case of
registry abandonment, where no substantive controversy could exist. If
so, then the issue is of little interest, whether Kent got it right or
wrong.

If as you suggest, a staffing analysis yeilds a cause for concern with
the set of mechanisms described in Kent Crispin's position paper, there
is not yet any substance to your claim that mutual secondaries and/or
the irrelevancy of registry abandonment are sufficient to support the
stated goals of that position paper -- stability, etc.


I have to confess I do not understand your response to the first and
third statements you made on Dave Crocker's comments on Jon Weinberg's
position paper, having not understood your original remarks.

First you appear to answer a specific question about innovation in dns
registry technology (the idealism issue) by reference to the Soviet Union
and 18th century France. Could you try again please? Some innovation (in
the registry technology) we can all agree had as its cause the agency
of a for-profit entity, sometime between 1969 and the present.

Third you made the claim that

>> 	NSI was started by academics and scientists...

I provided historic data (as well as personal anecdote) which contradicts
the claim. Skipping over the nature of utility regulation in the US, your
response shifts ground to a claim of incompetence on the part of the NSI,
and ARIN management teams.

You did ask what legal history (pleadings) has to do with the issue. 
Where the pleadings of both parties are in accord, there isn't any
issue or controversy. They are in accord on the point you made (retained
above), and differ with your claim.

I don't understand contradicting both DDN Management Bulletins and the
common legal statements on the issue you raised by both NSI counsel and
competent counsel for parties bringing claims against NSI.

I don't mind if you shift your emphasis, having misspoke.

Cheers,
Eric