North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Alternatives (was Re: whois broke again?)

  • From: bmanning
  • Date: Tue Feb 22 09:14:51 2000

> 
> > [email protected]
> > Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 5:11 PM
> 
> > > While I think that Bill Manning's DNS TXT suggestion is clever, and
> > > nicely distributed, it requires a lot of effort.
> >
> > 	actually, I think both efforts have about the same level
> > 	of effort.  In one case, its concentrated in a single place,
> > 	in the other, its all over the place.
> 
> The nice thing about central is that things will get done, or not done,
> consistantly. You tend to strike a closure point at some time. In the
> distributed "all over the place" model, things may never be consistent, nor
> will they ever be complete. It is also difficult to enforce quality
> standards.
> 

	Hum, is this an argument for reconsituting "Ma Bell"?
	One of the strengths of the Internet is its distributed nature.
	And the trend is in this direction with the addition of new
	IP aware products (cell phones, networked "gadgets", et.al.)
	Trying to retain a centralized structure is (IMHO) doomed to 
	failure.  Its better to have broadly available standards that
	can be enforced at the provider/subscriber boundary and then
	let the market "bloom" rather than have a single forcing function
	that everything must run through before proper operations can
	occur.
	
	We might as well argue for the reconstitution of the InterNIC
	and the abolishment of RIPE, APNIC, ARIN. You'll get "things ...
	done, or not done consistantly." and will "strike a closure point
	at some time".  

	Striking the balance is hard but I expect that the trend is away
	from centralized services.

	again, YMMV.

--bill (going offline for a while)