[CWG-Stewardship] Direct customers vs. the rest of stakeholders

[Suzanne Woolf]

Hi Avri,

> On May 22, 2015, at 1:49 AM, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:
> 
> On 21-May-15 23:29, Alan Greenberg wrote:
>> And yet, we have continually been told that as the direct customers,
>> only registries (perhaps with token other involvement) need to be
>> involved in a all sorts of decisions related to IANA.
> 
> I have to admit I may be the only one who remains somewhat confused by
> the term direct customer:

I guess I’m confused by your confusion. :-) 

I’ve followed the thread about the role of different stakeholders and different interests in the process we’re all engaged in, and I hope you’ll indulge me in walking through the example you’re presenting. 

I’ll say up front I’m not as uncomfortable as you seem to be with the idea that “direct customer” is a meaningful distinction in this case, both as a matter of simple practicality and as a matter of accountability. 

> Why is a registry which refers to a root server to make sure all of its
> entries are correct, more direct than a registrant or user who depends
> on a resolver that retrieves the data starting with the info in the root
> server for proper reference to the correct registry.  Both are dependent
> on the correct information to do their business and neither pays IANA
> for transactions with root servers.  They both make indirect reference
> to the data through the Root servers.  One needs data put in, and one
> needs to pull the data out.

Perhaps our views of what is actually provided by IANA differ, or at least our views of who relies upon whom, and for what.

It doesn’t seem to me that a TLD registry "refers to a root server to make sure all of its entries are correct.” The TLD operator interacts with IANA (staff, procedures, systems) for this. The TLD operator does not interact with root server systems or operators, because the data gets into the root servers from IANA (shorthand here for, “the infrastructure and processes maintained by the root zone management partners”), not from the TLD operator.

Root servers (and sometimes root server operators) interact with IANA, but only on the mechanics of distributing the data, not in any capacity having to do with the content of the zone or the processes for maintaining it as timely or correct.

Resolvers interact with root servers.

Users interact with end systems, which interact with resolvers.

If the data in the root zone for a TLD is wrong, or simply needs to be changed, registry operators don’t go to the root server operators to do it; the root server operators have no processes for such interactions and no capacity to coordinate them. They go to IANA. Now, in the unlikely (as in “hasn’t occurred in many years”) event that data in the root zone has to be changed on an emergency basis, IANA emergency update processes include root server operators in their coordination, but it’s their process, for which they are responsible.

Since TLD operators do interact with IANA staff and processes in a way that other users don’t, I guess I’ve never had a problem with referring to their relationship with IANA as more "direct” than the relationship with IANA of others who rely on the root and TLD infrastructure for timely and correct data.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your argument, but it seems self-evident to me that a registry is “more direct [in its relationship with IANA] than a registrant or user who depends on a resolver.” 

This is because everyone relies upon root servers for proper distribution of the data, but the root servers rely upon IANA as the source. The only place the data can be changed is inside IANA’s processes, so TLD operators can only rely upon IANA staff and processes to get their data correctly into the root zone.

> 
> The Registrants, Registrars and Registries are the ones paying to
> support the service, but it seems to me that both registries and users
> are relying on the service of IANA in a similar manner - we both access
> them through the root servers.

It seems to me that these are not so similar. TLD operators interact with IANA staff and processes, and rely directly upon them to get TLD data correctly into the root zone. OTOH users do indeed access the service IANA provides through the root servers via their local DNS infrastructure.

It seems to me that the IANA functions operator for root zone management is accountable to all of them, but hardly in identical ways or through identical means.

There seems also to be a question raised in the thread more implicitly, of making sure that interests other than those of registry operators are included in the processes and oversight of IANA’s technical service of maintaining the DNS root zone. However, I’m having trouble seeing a specific case where the interests of registry operators wouldn’t be aligned with the interests of users in having a correct, available, securely managed root zone, so I don’t know what additional interests would be accommodated by including additional stakeholders. Can you help me understand that?


thanks,
Suzanne