Re: in support of axfr-clarify

[Dean Anderson <dean@av8.com>]

On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Kevin Darcy wrote:

> No, the purpose of clarifying AXFR is not to spread a "big tent" that
> accommodates the idiosyncratic behavior of every AXFR implementation out there.

I agree with this statement. But we aren't talking about a lot of
idiosyncratic behavior. We are talking about behavior shared by numerous
nameservers, and now significantly changed by Bind 9.  So far as I know,
_only_ Bind 9 has this change.

A clarification should define the common way its done, the way it was
reasonably and commonly understood by readers the original document.

> > It seems highly inappropriate to make seemingly gratiutous changes in a
> > particular commercial product, begin distributing those changes to users,
> > and then attempt to change the standards to reflect the changes, and
> > describing those changes as a "clarification".
>
> I dispute that the changes are "gratuitous", that BIND is "a commercial product"

Vixie asserts a trademark on "BIND". Though I'm not convinced its really
valid, since it was in the public domain by UCB.  Trademarks are only
valid if used in commerce. .: Bind is a commercial product.

I guess "gratuitous" is rather vague. I should say that I think IXFR
should be changed instead of AXFR, and that I'm not convinced that any
protocol/semantic changes are really necessary to make this work. Rather
than accept these changes to AXFR, I think the implementors should give it
more thought.

> > This seems more like behind the scenes dirty tricks.
>
> Yeah, it's all a big conspiracy. Sheesh.

Appearances of impropriety weigh just as heavily as actual impropriety.

		--Dean



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