Preferential notice of new versions

Jimmy Kyriannis jimmy.kyriannis at nyu.edu
Mon Feb 5 02:37:39 UTC 2001


At 11:38 PM 2/3/01, Jeffrey Meltzer wrote:


>On Sat, Feb 03, 2001 at 07:10:23PM -0800, Sean Donelan typed:
> > As far as I can tell, ISC did not say they would stop distributing patches
> > through the same methods used now.  If you don't want to pay, you will
> > get the exact same patches, through the exact same methods you get them
> > now.
>
>I think the issue some of us have is ISC won't *let* you pay. It's not an
>issue of wanting to.  They're playing favorites, which just doesn't seem
>right.
>
>Jeff

In the FAQ that was distributed, it was clear that anyone is welcome to pay 
to help support the ISC mission.  However, I agree with ISC that a certain 
amount of priority must be given to the root and TLD servers (notice, they 
snuck government servers in as well at the end).  This isn't to say that 
our security needs aren't as significant as theirs, but they are a critical 
part of the Internet infrastructure, and widespread dissemination of 
security-related info that could compromise those servers before they've 
had a chance to apply patches would have a global impact affecting 
millions, not to mention the ability of our own DNS servers to function.

Regardless, there's no point in getting bent out of shape over this - I've 
always understood this practice to have been going on for a very many years 
now, and it hasn't been rare to see the root servers running a patch 
release not available to the general public.  Just now, however, we're 
seeing this practice openly stated and formalized.


Jimmy

===============
Jimmy Kyriannis
Network Manager
New York University, ITS Network Services
VoIP: 212-443-1890 / Tel: 212-998-3431
Internet Mail: jimmy.kyriannis at nyu.edu





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