Subject: Re: RFC 2182 considered harmful

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Feb 2000 21:33:12 -0000

Edward Lewis writes:
> The RFC is a BCP,

But it is _not_ the best current practice. It is wildly overstated. It
should be fixed.

You seem to be saying that you don't mind false statements if they're
not labelled STD. Perhaps, then, you should look at RFC 1035, which
requires two servers for each zone. This requirement imposes unnecessary
costs on a huge number of zones; it should be replaced by an accurate
analysis of the costs and benefits of various server configurations.

> "Must" means that to achieve the ability to withstand a single failure, the
> servers have to be dispersed.

No. ``Servers must do this, to minimize the chance of foo'' means
``Servers must do this. This minimizes the chance of foo.''

This is what the authors meant, it's what the text means, and it's what
a huge number of readers understand the text to mean. So your private
misunderstanding of the text really isn't relevant.

---Dan

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From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Feb 2000 21:33:12 -0000

---Dan