[dns-operations] The (very) uneven distribution of DNS root servers on the Internet

[Suzanne Woolf]

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 09:46:36AM +0100, Jim Reid wrote:
> On 15 May 2012, at 08:23, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> 
> >http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/05/07/the-very-uneven-distribution-of-dns-root-servers-on-the-internet/
> >
> >Technically very interesting (many numbers) but the author does not
> >seem to know how the root name servers are managed.
....
> It is of course interesting to note that there are proportionately  
> fewer root servers in Asia than there are people (or is it IP  
> addresses?).

It speaks of "users," and appears to be assuming that there's some
relationship between "has more users" and "needs more root server
capacity" on a regional (multiple countries, large network scale) basis.

I don't necessarily believe this, but the question is worth examining.
It has the same intuitive appeal as "Won't more TLDs mean more load on
the root servers?" to non-technical audiences and frankly deserves an
answer.

> BTW "fair and equitable" is one of those unfortunate phrases that gets  
> Internet governance types very excited, not always in a good way: eg  
> "fair and equitable" distribution of IP addresses.

Yes, and that's unfortunate, because the piece reads as if those words
are used in their common sense not their "governance" sense.