> >3) US govt has contractual rights to databased
>
> It had the right to a copy of the data generated,
> i.e., the zone files, and that was delivered about
> two years ago.
That right has yet to mature -- it occurs at the end of the Cooperative
Agreement. At such time the US may request NSI to turn over copies of
materials produced under the contract/cooperative-agreement.
Some additional deliverables were added by Amendment #11, but those do not
displace the one found in the original text.
> I'm not speaking for NSI, but there is the zone file provided as a
> service on port 53. This has nothing to do with an extract database
> provided for customer lookups on ports 43 and 80 a/k/a/ whois.
> That's simply an ancillary feature that has constantly evolved and is
> manifested in many different forms on the sites of the diverse DNS
> zone maintainers. Feist is not applicable. To the extent there ever
> was a general directory service under the NIS NSF cooperative
> agreement, it was provided by AT&T and long dismantled. I don't
> recall anyone complaining when that occurred.
The whois database pre-existed NSI. As I rember, Tom N. of NSI rewrote
the whois server to mimic what the one at SRI, one of NSI''s predecessors
did.
The whois database is part and parcel, a necessary element of DNS
operation. It is impossible (or at least unreasonable) to conceive of
running a TLD zone file without keeping track of who is associated with
each second level domain.
The two parts - zone file and whois/contact database have always been two
parts of a whole. The whois/contact database is useful in and of itself,
but the zone file starts to disintegrate and becomes rapidly worthless
without the whois/contact database -- without the contact database it is
impossible to validate updates, or even to collect fees.
Indeed, the fact that NSF approved fees contains an implicit statement
that there is a contact database upon which the contractor, NSI, can
administer to process renewals.
The whois database is about as ancillary to DNS as wings are ancillary to
a flying airplane.
--karl--
