Michael R. Brumm wrote:
Let's pretend the IETF in its wisdom decides that The New SPF
absolutely may not reuse TXT.
I'm against a new RR type instead of TXT for SPF, unless IETF
absolutely requires it.
I concur.
There is a good argument for using a new RRtype: it is good
engineering and architecture.
And it is also good enineering, as a derivative of Occam's Razor, that when
two solutions are at hand, which both work equally well, that you should
then go with the simplest one.
The position of the IETF seems to be that SPF someone usurps TXT, somehow
misuses it. I disagree with that. For two reasons: other TXT records can
still be used, next to SPF records, without interference; and simply: SPF
records are text records; so, who is improperly using anything?
The good argument against using a new RRtype, of course, is that you
don't want to require the whole world to upgrade their DNS servers
just to be able to publish SPF records. This is the argument that
reflects the last 6 months of consensus on the SPF list.
Another couple good arguments against it:
In addition to the servers not supporting it, many querying libraries
also do not support RR types. This makes implementation of SPF much
more difficult for some platforms.
Indeed.
Well over 14,000 domains already support SPF using TXT. Do we support
backward compatibility for existing SPF records and for domains whose
servers who do not support RR types? If so, then why bother having
two records that mean the same thing?
Very to the point. If there are two solutions (see my comment above) that
work equally well, then the most complicated one is clearly the inferior
one.
- Mark
System Administrator Asarian-host.org
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"If you were supposed to understand it,
we wouldn't call it code." - FedEx