Re: [wg-c] IAB Technical Comment on the Unique DNS Root

[John Charles Broomfield <jbroom@manta.outremer.com>]

> And like the old claim that bumblebees can't possibly fly, the fact of the
> matter is that competitive roots do work.  (I've been using 'em for more
> than two years.)
(...)
> Further, the IAB's statement begs the question that if there is but one
> root system, why should it be ICANN's?
(...)
> I am happly using a competitive root system, and as you may note, I am
> having no difficulty communicating with everyone else.  Nor is anyone
> having trouble communicating with me.  And I haven't seen a single DNS
> root service outage in more than two years of operation.

The success and usefulness of your competitive root can be seen in the
amount of clickable links around the world that direct to non-ICANN/IANA
TLDs. As such your "competitive root" is a superset of the bog-standard
root. Any other additional data you have in your competitive root (apart
from anything you may be using for internal corporate reasons like a private
LAN) is as good as if it wasn't there.
Yes, you are proving that what everyone else runs from cache you have in a
live file and consider it to be authoritative (a step backwards), however
that is NOT something that will break the 'net.
Running as authoritative what should be run as cache is a questionable
approach which results in working with more or less stale data. The problem
arises when everyone builds their data haphazardly. You are NOT authoring
your root-zone. You are taking the set from the legacy roots and then adding
to it. As what you are adding doesn't *really* get used, it doesn't matter.
What the paper says is that a single place of authority is needed to build
the root-zone. If you have two powerful places from where to download the
root-zone and they contain conflicting information on different TLDs (for
example one has a ".web" that points to IOD, the other has a ".web" that
points to CORE), then THATS when you get problems.

(...)
> The imposition of one
> catholic root removes an element of self-choice from those who wish to
> limit their view of the Internet name landscape.  And by preventing
> proximate location of roots and net users, the single-rootists impose upon
> carriers a significant packet burden and cost (measured both in dollars
> and in waiting, unsatisfied users) that otherwise need not be borne.
> 		--karl--

Yes, you are 100% right that the "statement begs the question that if there
is but one root system, why should it be ICANN's?". The answer to that is
that as long as there is only one internet, it would seem likely that there
will only be one root system. The fact of the matter today is that *the* root
system of *the* internet (speaking in practical terms) *IS* the ICANN (ex
IANA) root-system (hand waving/flapping about alternative non-significant
root-servers is just that: waving and flapping). You seem not to like that,
which is why you have convinced yourself that you have setup your own
root-zone. Sorry, you haven't. And as long as you keep going back time and
time again to the legacy roots (or to any other place that in turn picks up
their data from the legacy roots) for the meaningful part of "your"
root-zone, then you are in fact also following the ICANN roots. I have yet
to hear from anyone asking me for data about what are the authoritative
servers for gp/mq, so I presume that all of you get them ultimately through
IANA/ICANN roots.
A bunch of people have tried to set off a revolution of alternative roots
authored by them. It all boils down to ONE root-file that has to be setup.
When there are conflicts, there HAS to be a single party with decision
power, otherwise you find yourself in a standoff when there are two parties
that do not cooperate. The alternatives, despite all the noise that would
indicate the contrary have not managed ANYTHING (proof: check to see what %
of traffic on the 'net is going to/coming from non-IANA TLDs).
The different WG's are discussing what are the rules of the game for how
ICANN should work. For non-ICANN game-playing you don't need to be on these
lists.

Yours, John Broomfield.