[dnsext] zone cut semantics

[Jim Reid <[e-mail]>]

On 20 Feb 2011, at 20:14, Brandon Black wrote:

> Isn't this really a matter of semantics?

Yes: zone cut semantics, not language semantics.

> The parent zone is
> authoritative for everything beneath itself, even if it choses to use
> that power of authority to give a delegation response.  e.g. the .com
> servers are authoritative for www.example.com, but they choose to
> delegate that answer to the NS for example.com.

Nope. Query the .com name servers for the NS records for example.com.  
They correctly return a non-authoritative answer. It's only the name  
servers for example.com that are authoritative for example.com and  
will authoritatively answer that query. In other words, it's the child  
that's responsible for the zone's authoritative NS RRset, not the  
parent. Which is how things should be when you consider what  
delegation actually means: crossing an administrative boundary from  
one authority to another.

Please think again about what you posted. The inference of what you  
say is that the root servers are authoritative for everything. That's  
clearly not true.