Subject: RE: The Message is Simple - Just like the Internet

From: Jim Fleming <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 07:25:02 -0600

On Tuesday, February 24, 1998 3:10 AM, Carl Moberg[SMTP:[email-masked]] wrote:
@Jim Fleming wrote:
@[...]
@> I am not sure why Europe has not progressed to a point where
@> it has infrastructure that rivals the U.S. Australia is well on their
@> way to acheiving this goal. I suspect Canada will be next. Via
@> education and engineering help the Internet frontiers can be
@> expanded away from the U.S. That is the only way you will
@> be able to have the Internet as the most wonderful thing on
@> Earth.
@
@It would be really interesting to know in wich way you see that Europe
@"has not progressed to a point where it has infrastructure that rivals
@the U.S.".
@

Europe does not have a stand-alone Root Name Server Cluster*.

* Some prefer the word cluster over confederation.

Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation
IBC, Tortola, BVI

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From: Lars-Johan Liman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 16:10:11 +0100

Not having followed this discussion closely ...

> * Some prefer the word cluster over confederation.

I still don't get it. There are two root name servers in Europe:

i.root-servers.net:	Stockholm, Sweden
k.root-servers.net:	London, United Kingdom

What to you mean by "stand-alone" and "cluster"/"confederation"?

				Best regards,
				  /Liman
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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:23:18 -0500

> Europe does not have a stand-alone Root Name Server Cluster*.

Most likely because we don't understand the semantics of what having
more than one *stand-alone* cluster would mean....

I thought the whole *problem* here is that we need to *require* that
all the root servers have a consistent concept of reality.  How would
a stand-alone second cluster accomplish this?  Remember to answer in
essay format, and in your answer to discuss why the Alternic list of
alternet TLD's weren't visible from non-Alternic sites....

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 18:23:24 +0100

> What to you mean by "stand-alone" and "cluster"/"confederation"?

Oh, let me try to interpret for you. ;-) What Jim is alluding to is
"collections of self-proclaimed root name servers internally
synchronized but not necessarily synchronized up to a single global
source for the root zone", i.e. the AlterNIC trick done once more.
Doing so on a larger scale would of course not only cause the Internet
to effectively fracture, but would also legitimize this practice,
which may be in some people's interest (but I think, not in the
general public's interest).  Not an avenue I would recommend walking
down, BTW.

- Håvard

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:16:08 -0800 (PST)

> source for the root zone"

Kinda like Bill Simpson's new IANA?

randy