> If someone wants to add a new RR type to their DNS server, and their > server cannot handle it, then they can simply replace/upgrade their server. And if someone wants to leverage the DNS protocol and DNS server software in order to operate a global distributed database, then there are no barriers to doing this on ports other than port 53. The IETF barely needs to be involved at all other than defining the new RR. But when someone suggests that port 53 servers should all support some new RR or anything else that is new, now we are talking about a major upgrade to the Internet's mission critical infrastructure impacting millions of people worldwide. Here the IETF has a major role to play and the IETF should tread very carefully. In fact, the issue of port 53 services being such an important infrastructure leads me to think that the IETF should freeze the DNS protocol definition for anything that is not directly related to the job that port 53 servers MUST do. Things like DNSSEC are OK, but leveraging DNS for a global distributed database are not. Since there is great interest in using the DNS protocol for a distributed database, it would help to fork the DNS protocol and deal with this work in a separate WG and using a separate port number. Such a WG might also consider issuing a document comparing DNS and LDAP so that it is clear to all, when and why you might choose DNS for a distributed database over LDAP. > This is no different than anyone else who wants new functionality in > a system that doesn't support the new stuff, and nothing at all remarkable. Really, if they want new stuff in this system that doesn't support new stuff, they might as well stuff it all in the TXT RR. > The issue that one needs to consider, is whether some third party's > system is either going to interfere with my use of the new functionality > (examples of firewalls in ISPs and similar are places where this kind > of consideration might apply), or whether the new functionality is going > to cause problems for third party systems. Defining a general-use DNS database protocol separately from Domain Naming Services allows one to address all these issues directly. --Michael Dillon _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf