[65859] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Root Authority
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr.)
Tue Dec 16 10:15:28 2003
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 09:14:48 -0600
From: "Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr." <larrysheldon@cox.net>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
Paul Vixie wrote:
>
> > An interesting question I've dealt with a few times:
> >
> > From whom do the root nameservers derive their authority?
>
> we (i'm speaking for f-root here) have no "authority". nobody has to
> listen to us, we are the most powerless bunch of folks you'll ever meet.
>
> now if you'd asked where we derive our *relevance*, i'd say the same as
> mr. bush and mr. kletnieks -- from all the root.cache files that point
> at us. and as long as we don't do anything stupid i guess (and hope)
> that this state of affairs will continue. (relevance trumps authority.)
>
> that having been said, f-root got its start as NS.ISC.ORG and the man
> who said it was ok for us to be a root name server was jon postel. i'm
> not sure he had any "authority" either, but folks "pointed at" him and
> so what he said was relevant in spite of any authority he mightn've had.
I think that testimony belongs in a collection of Jon Postel
characterizations.
I long for the days when people did things simply and only because
they were the right thing to do.
Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Vixie.
