[dns-operations] Google's name servers compressing names in SRV records

[Peter Koch]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 11:11:14AM -0700, Matthew Dempsky wrote:

> I dislike the position that because some software followed a backwards
> incompatible, experimental RFC, that standards compliant software
> should be changed to allow that behavior.

it is yet unclear whether these servers ideed followed RFC 2052 or had other
reasons to compress SRV RDATA. Also, I don't see anyone suggesting
"standards compliant software should be changed". The "standard", RFC 3597,
already says they SHOULD be prepared to decompress SRV RDATA.  It is one
of those occasions where RFCs deprecate a feature on one side, yet still
recommend the other side (the client in this case) handle the "misbehaviour"
gracefully.  RFCs are intended to increase interoperability, they don't
always help bringing someone to protocol court.

-Peter