Root nameservers...

One of the reasons why putting root servers outside the US has been avoided
is that the most common DNS implementation -- BIND -- has for a long time had
bugs such that it wouldn't use "close" servers over "distant" ones.  Since the
U.S. was the center of most of the world's Internet connectivity (and still is)
it was easier to just put the root servers where the traffic ``probably had to
go anyway most of the time'' than to fix BIND.

BIND is fixed.  I think some of the math is still "wrong", since I didn't pick
up all of the patches I got from Phil Almquist in this area and I know he spent
a whole lot of time on it.  But I did fix a lot of the sorting behaviour in 4.9
(and a few more things will be fixed in 4.9.2). If all of the root servers that
run BIND use 4.9 or later, and most of the large institutional forwarding
servers that run BIND use 4.9 or later, it will no longer matter where the root
servers are.

Note: I'm just another BIND hacker, I don't make decisions about root servers.
But if those who *do* make these decisions want to spread the root service load
a bit more, BIND is finally able to do the right thing about it.
--
Paul Vixie
Redwood City, CA    Also: <comp-sources-unix at uunet.uu.net>, <vixie at bsdi.com>,
decwrl!vixie!paul         <ftpmail-admin at pa.dec.com>, <vixie at sony.com>,
<paul at vix.com>            <{bind-workers,objectivism}-request at vix.com>

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Erik-Jan.