Where are we going?

[mcc@WLV.IIPO.GTEGSC.COM (Merton Campbell Crockett)]

My understanding is that each root nameserver has complete knowledge of the 
top level domains.  As the number of top level domains increases, one would 
expect an increase in the number of secondary, tertiary, or quartenary domains 
that are registered.  At some point, it will become impractical for a root 
nameserver to have complete knowledge.

How will a root nameserver with incomplete knowledge "discover" another root 
nameserver?  Obviously, I'm making an assumption that "root" nameservers serve 
one or more ".tld." domains and that there are not, necessarily, any servers 
explicitly for ".".

Once "discovered", how does a root nameserver "register" with another root 
nameserver?

What is used to seed "root.cache" or "named.cache"?  It seems reasonable to 
expect that as the Internet expands that "root" name service will need to be 
regional in nature.  If I am in the ".com." domain, would I seed my cache with 
the ".com." root nameservers?  Or, would I use ".us." nameserver that might be 
closer?

One of the issues raised on the IETF mailing list was the problem of DNS being 
used as a search engine.  Several people suggested that the publishers of Web 
Browsers include search engines that would query a registry for the desired 
domain name.  I know about RS.INTERNIC.NET but haven't a clue as to where I 
would go for .CH, .CZ, or .IL.

Expansion of the namespace allows bonkers.com, bonkers.ltd, bonkers.co.uk, 
bonkers.to.ca.us, etc. to gracefully co-exist.  We've allowed multiple 
entities to use the name "bonkers" and may have eliminated some litigation; 
however, it doesn't seem to do much about the level of DNS queries.  Instead 
of looking for interesting ways of spelling "bonkers", we change to guessing 
the top level domain.

I may be missing the point of this committee but it seems that the issue of 
registries and their databases needs to be addressed at the same time.  The 
prospect, or presence, of well-known registries might be an enticement for 
organizations to consider registering in something besides .com.

Merton Campbell Crockett