Message for Bind-users

[Hans Hohenner]

First of all, I think you're wasting valuable bandwidth, so this is my last 
response on this issue to the discussion group.

At 09:00 PM 6/13/2000 -0400, Kevin Darcy wrote:
>Hans Hohenner wrote:
>
> > Since this is clearly an important issue to you, my suggestion is to author
> > a RFP proposing the change.  It's better to work within the system (such
> > that it is, the Internet can be a pretty chaotic place) than go off on a
> > tangent.   Better yet, why not write one to allow the  Unicode character
> > set to be used... and include the underscore in this list.  I'm sure you'll
> > please lots of people not in USA that way too, and maybe get enough of a
> > consensus to push it through.
>
>Straw Man argument. I haven't expressed an opinion one way or another on 
>unicode
>characters. Furthermore, if I were to make a _cause_celebre_  out of
>underscore-acceptance, I'd think I'd be pragmatic enough to decouple it 
>from any
>unicode proposal, given the dismal record that such proposals have 
>historically
>had in getting accepted...

My point is this:
Standards are, by nature, a consensus decision.  Please go to the standards 
body with your concerns.  My comments on Unicode were just a (perhaps 
poorly thought through) suggestion if you were actually interested in an 
avenue that might get you an audience to get the standard changed; as it is 
now, I see you just want to complain about this.

> > If that gets accepted by the IETF, then the bind authors will (most likely,
> > I'm not one of those esteemed folks, and can't really speak for them...)
> > incorporate the changes into the code base.  I'm quite willing to bet that
> > their goal is to follow the standards that are in place, not arbitrarily
> > change them.
>
>I'm not sure I understand you here: are you saying that ISC would 
>purposely flout
>an Internet standard just because of a personal bias against underscores? 
>Or are
>you trying to make the case that a standard which allows underscores in 
>hostnames
>is somehow inherently *more* arbitrary than one which prohibits them?

No.  I'm not trying to defend or justify the decision process that went 
into making underscores illegal.  I'm saying that that's the way the 
current standard happens to be.  The best approach to getting this changed 
would be through the RFC process, not having an argument on this mailing 
list.  The current RFC explicitly makes underscores illegal.  Until that 
changes, I doubt that any implementation of DNS would change.

Hans