Re: Anti Capitalism?

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

davidk@ISI.EDU allegedly said:
> 
[...]
> 
> I don't think that the registry repository should contain the whois data
> at all. The repository should be as lightweight as possible, that is:
> 
> - pointer to registrar that registered the data
> - contain DNS configuration data
> - public keys of registrars
> - public keys of the domain holder (needed for transfer of
>   domain registration services between registrars)

I agree that the repository shouldn't contain whois data.

We can actually go further than that -- there doesn't need to be 
*any* repository database -- DNS is completely adequate to serve that 
function.  Of course -- it still has to be decided who runs the 
primary nameserver...CORE?  Perhaps we just call DNS the repository.

For example:

wren            IN      NS      songbird.com.
                IN      NS      ns1.aztech.net.
                IN      TXT     "Registrar: registry@songbird.com"
                IN      TXT     "Contact-id: KC125"
                IN      TXT     "Contact-name: Kent Crispin"
                IN      TXT     "Contact-email: kent@songbird.com"
                IN      TXT     "Contact-address: etc"
                IN      TXT     "Contact-phone: etc"
                IN      TXT     "Contact-fax: etc"
                IN      TXT     "Contact-key: etc"

This works fine.  It's easy to add the data to DNS (just a mechanical
edit of a zone database file), and it's just a tiny bit of 
already-written code to extract it.

So why a central database at all?

> The number of updates to the repository will then be the minimum since
> one only needs to update it in case of:
> 
> - a new domain
> - a change in DNS configuration data
> - a new registrar

Yes.  All you really need is a central service that coordinates DNS 
updates.  The only data such a service needs to keep is information 
about *pending* updates, and authentication information about the 
different registrars.  Even for .com, a database of *pending* DNS 
updates would probably be well under 1000 items at any time.

[...]

> The repository makes a dump of this data available every day/week. Diffs
> can be made available real-time (on a separate machine).
>
> The whois services can be run by the registrars (or other parties) and
> can support redirects to other registrars by making use of the repository
> dump.

If the data is in DNS the central service doesn't have to do anything at 
all to support whois.

> Please keep the centralized part as simple as possible. This will
> increase reliability, performance and possibly reduce the 20k fee ;-).
> 
> Note that it is important that these requirements are mentioned in the
> IAHC document to make sure that CORE cannot make it self more important
> (by requiring more functionality in the repository) then strictly needed
> (and thus make it more difficult for new registrars to enter the
> business).

100% agreement.  The more you can distribute responsibility, the better.

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E  87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F