[conspire] And why is cruddy DNS so common in Internet hosting, anyway?

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2016 15:08:05 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Edie Stern 
Cc: Mark Olson, Joe Siclari
Subject: Re: Help me Obi-Wan!
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

[Please ignore this unsolicited analysis / editorial, if interested only
in fanac.org specifics.]


I wrote:

> I started doing Unix computing back in the middle 1980s when I was just
> a peon staff accountant without any IT background -- because nobody told
> me I couldn't.  I quickly learned how to do key Internet services
> including DNS _right_, at the same time many computer hobbyist friends
> did.  And knowing how to do it right, when I check how alleged
> professionals are doing it, I am often appalled at how badly they muff
> it.

And you might wonder why.  I mean, it's their profession.  Shouldn't
they do it competently?  I can explain why not.

1.  There's no pressure for competence, because purchasers typically
aren't even really aware DNS exists.  Most are just aware of 'Web
hosting'.  Domain names get regarded as things that Just Work.  And when
DNS fails, customers typically can't even figure out what specific part
of 'Web hosting' has problems.  (You're an exception.)

Customers not even knowing _what_ they're buying is a recipe tending
to create bad product.
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#moenslaw-bicycles

2.  DNS includes such massive designed-in redundancy that doing it badly
almost always works well enough.  Money, effort, and attention then get
diverted elsewhere.

3.  Technically adept Internet people who've become aware of this issue 
tend to solve it by running their own nameservers.  Consquently, the few
who _could_ hold hosting companies' feet to the fire have little
incentive to do so.

Consequently, 'professionals' (hosting companies) tend to sleaze 
by with dysfunctional DNS that barely works.  By contrast, the people
who take pride in doing it right are hobbyists.  (And institutions that
do their own DNS.)


----- End forwarded message -----