Root server cannot be a forwarder?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <ehbkg4$1g42$1 at sf1.isc.org>,
 Kevin Darcy <kcd at daimlerchrysler.com> wrote:

> Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 20, 2006 at 04:43:55AM -0700,
> >  April <xiaoxia2005a at yahoo.com> wrote 
> >  a message of 18 lines which said:
> >
> >   
> >> I'm not talking about the Roots for the Internet, but a namespace in
> >> general.
> >>     
> >
> > I do not recognize DNS vocabulary and ontology. On a BIND mailing
> > list, using the DNS terminology seems a good start :-)
> >   
> I don't see any problem with the terminology: a root server is a server 
> that answers authoritatively when queried for the root zone. Whether the 
> client or the server happens to be on the Internet shouldn't have any 
> bearing on the terminology used, it's only the context of the transaction.

But that's not what people were referring to by "root server" in this 
thread, either.  They're using the term "root server" to mean "server 
for the root of my domain".  In other words, on the Acme Corporation 
network, the server that hosts acme.com is their "root server".

I think people really need to learn to be less pedantic.  When context 
makes the meaning clear, we can survive sloppy terminology and 
ambiguity.  The fact that someone asks a question like the one in the OP 
indicates that they don't have much expertise in this area, so do you 
really expect them to be fully familiar with our terminology?  We're 
smart people, we can figure out what they mean even if they don't use 
the exactly correct words.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
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