Re: host transfers

["Jordyn A. Buchanan" <jordyn@register.com>]

Hi Klaus:

I'll try to keep this short.  These messages are becoming a bit too 
long to digest easily.

Your proposal is to allow any registrar to create name server objects 
for any domain.  Explaining to me what useful functionality this 
achieved vs. the EPP model, you indicated:

>1. Other registrars are not able to create name servers in that domain
>
>2. The sponsoring registrar does not have full control over his own
>    name servers, i.e. anyone can reference his name server and block
>    the deletion of the name server and also the domain the
>    name server belongs to.

There is tension between these two benefits.  You want a sponsoring 
registrar to be able to prevent the *use* of a name server within a 
domain that they sponsor, but not the *creation* of a name server in 
the same domain.  This doesn't make sense.  If it's desirable to 
prohibit the use of a name server that has been registered already in 
the registry; presumably, it may also be desirable to prohibit the 
use of a name server that exists within the domain, but hasn't been 
registered yet.

Additionally, the second of these objectives could be accomplished by 
the use of a status that indicates that new associations with the 
name server (or contact, for that matter) are disallowed.

I also asked why the sponsorship model would be problematic if 
transfers were able to be accomplished from one registrar to another 
easily.  Your response was:

>because they have to pay for. People usually don't transfer domains
>if 1 1/2 years or so are left from the registration period. And, eventually,
>they have some other domains registered via a third registrar.

For someone who often accuses those that disagree with him of being 
overly tied to the gTLD model, the above statement seems to assume 
the exact same model.  There's nothing within the EPP protocol that 
requires payment of any fee for the domain name at transfer time. 
This is a matter of registry policy.

Finally, in a response to Patrick you conclude by writing:

>I don't want to be offensive. But the more I read in this list here the more I
>am missing the 'global view' of the participants, the view beyond 
>the borders of
>the registry system. Big efforts are taken to have some consistency 
>in a single
>registry and they are defended by all means - although their 
>contribution to the
>stability of the Domain Name System are marginally. Even worse, due 
>to the fact
>that we get more and more ccTLD/gTLD registries around the world (especially
>think of the upcomming separation of the com/net/org registry), it will become
>quite uncommon that the name servers of a domain belong to the same TLD which
>make these efforts useless. On the other hand, problems that may 
>arise from this
>fact are not considered in any way. The assumptions the current name server
>concept is based on are from a time long ago where NSI was the only 
>BIG registry
>and where customers directly registered with NSI. Therefore, the emerging
>protocols that have been proposed here until now may be new, but 
>their concepts
>are still the same old ones. No real advance.
>
>This disappoints me somehow.

I'm not sure where the above commentary is coming from.  This whole 
thread started with the suggestion by Sheer that name server objects 
from domains not registered within a specific registry should be 
transferable outside of the domain sponsorship model.  This seems to 
be an explicit recognition of a problem posed by multiple registries.

Most of the message in which you wrote this explains why glue records 
are only needed for name servers that are authoritative for their own 
domains, an argument that I'll admit I'm coming around to.  However, 
an argument against this approach that has been raised in the past is 
that it is possible to create a situation in which two (or more 
domains) use name servers in the other domain(s), so that none of 
them end up having glue or being useful.  For example:

A.XXX has name servers NS1.B.YY and NS2.B.YY.
B.YY has name servers NS1.A.XXX and NS2.A.XXX.

Under your scheme, neither of these domains will work.  For that 
matter, under your scheme, even if A and B were both in domain XXX, 
they would not work.  A modified version of your scheme could fix the 
problem by checking for such situations within a single registry, but 
is utterly unresolvable if the domains are in different registries.

Klaus, I think many of your arguments are reasonable and well thought 
out.  I happen to agree with some of them, but I don't think that you 
are stupid or naive as a result of our disagreement.  I hope that you 
can accord the rest of us the same respect.

Jordyn