randomizing lease renewal?

[Simon Hobson]

Scott Helms wrote:

>  > To put this in perspective, we've had requests on this list in the
>>  past for 2 hours (that I can remember), and downloads lasting 2 hours
>>  are quite feasible - not only that, but you have to consider that the
>>  user doesn't wait until just after an address change to hit download
>>  so you can affect downloads after any subset of the max lease time.
>
>I'm sure people have asked because they'd give people a new IP every X
>time period, I never said that everyone who wanted this feature wanted
>it for good reasons.  However, I believe that simply because it can be
>used in a poor way isn't a reason to not include it as a tool.  Like
>anything else you do to a network, you had better know what you're
>doing.

I didn't say that ISC had refused to provide it, but as David has 
pointed out, there has never been a strong demand for it. Only two 
requests in how long (I think I must have been on this list for 5 
years or more) ?

People write features into software for two reasons : it's something 
they personally want to see it do, or it's something that people want 
to use. So far there's been no indication that the randomising lease 
feature is something that people actually want to use - in fact I'm 
sure we've had comments along the lines of "good, I can go back and 
tell management that I can't do it" ! Given a near complete lack of 
demand for this, and a long list of other features with a positive 
demand - what would you write ?

It literally is only in the last few weeks that we've had good 
reasons put forward for this feature - before that I don't think any 
of us could see a good use for it. It's not a 'religious' thing !


You say that you don't have time to write it yourself - that's fair 
enough, David gives you some hints how to move it up the task list ;-)