Re: [DNSOP] Current DNS standards, drafts & charter

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 05:46:45PM +0200, bert hubert wrote:
> So my first suggested action is: could we write a document that has a core
> introduction of DNS and then provides a recommended (not) reading list.

Maybe we could, but we failed at that once before.

After the DNSSEC work wound down, around IETF 68, DNSEXT went
"dormant".  But it was apparent that the DNS protocol was complicated
and difficult to understand, so the WG was rechartered partly to try
to get some clarity to the standards.  The document the WG hung its
efforts on was
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dnsext-dns-protocol-profile-01.

The problem, of course, was that nobody had the time required to
complete this.  I have no idea how the SMTP crowd at the IETF manged
to get the cycles to update 821/822 several times, but we were unable
to get this energy.  The last update to that draft came in January
2008, and by IETF 72 (in July of '08) Olafur and I concluded that, if
we couldn't get any activity, then we'd try to focus the WG on places
where it could make progress.  We took that decision in the fall of
2008.

Now, I don't think that the work was bad or wrong, and I think that
draft remains a useful place to start if people want to pick up that
work again.  But I'm not super convinced that this or any other WG
really will have the desire to undertake it.  Maintenance is no fun,
and inventing new stuff is more entertaining.

But, by all means, if people want to revisit that effort, I think it
would be a fine thing.  I think, however, that someone should contact
a friendly neighbourhood AD to try to determine where the work should
be chartered.  I do _not_ think it is operations and management work.

One thing that would be interesting to explore in taking that effort
up is whether DNS should really be considered INT or ART.  DNS lives
squarely in the application layer and isn't really like the other
things that fit in INT.  OTOH, it's more a service to other parts of
the network than it is an application the way ordinary application
layer things are.  The misfit of the model to the world strikes again!

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]