Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sunybcs!urth.acsu.buffalo.edu!pjg
From: pjg@urth.acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
Subject: Re: Politics of domain naming styles
Message-ID: <30142@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 8 Jul 90 02:32:03 GMT
References: <9007072110.AA01663@tmc.edu>
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sob@TMC.EDU (Stan Barber) writes:

|While the DNS is distributed, there remains a big problem with the
|in-addr.arpa domain.

yep.

|I would guess that there are two major problems at many sites:
[lack of talent and lack of hardware for subnets]

i don't know.  could be.  routers are pretty cheap though.

|There is also the question of ultimate responsibility. Who is ultimately
|responsible for the DNS run by a particular organization? What if that person
|is not empowered to correct problems with the DNS in the sub-domains of that
|organization?

it's not clear to me how this is a problem.  i was under the impression
that the primary for the domain is the authoritative source for name service
for users outside the domain.

[the answer is procedures for interacting with the central authority]
|That central authority would then be accountable for insuring the
|accuracy of the information and timely updates to the central databases. If
|the central authority is overworked, then funds need to be allocated by the
|organization to improve the service . . .

sure, if that works.  my point is it doesn't always and i don't know of
any good reason why the database should centralized.  after all doesn't
the above argument apply to the nic? a few more dollars and the nic
could manage everything, hmmm in fact we could have just this one file
with everyone in it and copy it out to all the hosts that want to do
lookups.

|It is not a question of power. It is a question of good service, accuracy of
|data, and cooperation. 

bzzzzt. at lots of unpleasantly political institutions it is a question of
power.  e.g. in another life the people who owned the routers claimed they
couldn't pass traffic unless everyone was in their domain.  control freaks
are alive and well and living on a network near you.