Re: [apps-discuss] Updating the status of SPF

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 11:19:06PM +0200, Frank Ellermann wrote:
> 
> If you insist on it the WG should IMHO still be free to say whatever
> it likes to say about the type 99 DNS SPF RR; maybe kill it for good.

The plain fact is that once a DNS RRTYPE is allocated, it can't be
"killed".  You can deprecate its use and tell new software not to look
it up.  But the code point will remain assigned, I predict, until we
stop using the DNS (which, at the rate we are adding lard to spackle
to baling-wire, might be any day now, but that's a digression for
another list).

For the little it us no doubt worth, it is the "TXT is now used
everywhere, and so we're not going to deprecate that even in new
versions of the protocol, pppptttthhht" argument that annoys people
who see the problems with TXT records whenever they're overloaded in
yet another protocol.  In effect, once you adopt TXT, you're going to
use it forever.  This same attitude is why we still have A-record MX
fallback all these years later.

But I do agree that, if people are wedded to using their bad idea
forever, one isn't going to change their mind, and it is silly to have
two mechanisms for achieving the same goal one of which is never used
(particularly if it causes additional DNS load).

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]