On Tue, 16 Sep 2003, Keith Moore wrote:
I strongly disagree. The DNS is the ultimate authority on whether a
domain exists, since the way you create a domain is by making an entry
in the DNS. Making existence of a domain depend on a separate
registry makes no sense and is inconsistent with longstanding practice.
No, the ultimate authority of whether a domain exists is the registry of
domain names. DNS is just a protocol to distribute that information.
What you are saying about DNS is like saying BGP is the ultimate authority
of IP address assignment. Obviously, it is the records of assignment that
are the ultimate authority.
We are not just now making a separate registry. There has always been a
separate registry, with records apart from DNS. DNS is a protocol for
distributing DNS records from hierarchically delegated subregistries.
The existance of the TLDs is managed by one registry. The existance of
.net and .com is managed by another.
It is quite reasonable to have all unassigned delegations come back to the
appropriate registry. This is the purpose of a wildcard record. There is
no reason that a registry isn't allowed to have all unassigned delegations
point to it.
--Dean