Enable BIND cache server to resolve chinese domain name?

I think that the marketing people are going to win
this one. There is no marketable benefit to the ICANN
root zone but there are clear advantages for countries
using non-Latin alphabets to switch to a root zone that
allows for their own language to be used in domain names.

  That works, up until the point where India decides to use a different alternative root solution than China does. That works, up until the point where the inexperienced alternative root operators screw something up and their entire "expanded" Internet goes down, while the real root servers continue normal operations.

  The balkanization of the 'net is something to be avoided at all possible costs.

Turkey was recently mentioned and that is also a country
that uses a non-Latin alphabet.

  It doesn't matter how many non-Latin alphabets you introduce. What matters is that there can be only one root.

   That works, up until the point where India decides to use a
different alternative root solution than China does.

The only people affected by this are the people who run
the alternative root used by China because, presumably,
it means that they lose some business to a competitor
who has won the Indian market.

That works, up
until the point where the inexperienced alternative root operators
screw something up and their entire "expanded" Internet goes down,
while the real root servers continue normal operations.

Yes, and Google works until they screw something up and
their wonderful search engine goes down while Excite and
Yahoo et al. continue normal operations. These things
happen and one would hope that the customers of this
alternative root system make sure that their supplier
has resiliency superior or equal to the ICANN root system.
Some people may be shocked that I said "superior" in that
sentence but consider that these alternative roots are
likely to be more regional than the ICANN root and thus
they could put more servers throughout a specific region
than the ICANN roots can afford to set up.

   The balkanization of the 'net is something to be avoided at all
possible costs.

My company makes good money off balkanization of the 'net
and we are definitely *NOT* the only one. AOL has always
operated a network apart from the rest. The Internet is
so big now that some balkanization is inevitable and it
can even be a good thing. Do your customers care how
fast they can get to http://www.satka.ru or http://www.vernon.ca

What matters is that there can be only one root.

One ring rule them all,
One ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all
And in the darkness BIND them

Isn't that what the Berkeley Internet Naming Daemon does?

Some people think that this is too much like a single
point of failure and that the right thing to do is
to route around this by creating alternative root systems.
They may be right and they may be wrong, but the only
way to find out is to let them have a go. It has been
almost 10 years now since the first alternative root
(Alternic) started operation. The fact that this has not
simply faded away shows that there may be something
to it.

Remember, the public root systems are not attacking
the ICANN root infrastructure at the network layer
in any way. They are not impeding the ability of the
ICANN roots to function and they are not stopping
people from following your "only one root" model.
Their entrepreneurial spirit is consistent with the
free and open way in which the Internet has developed.
Remember the paraphrase from Voltaire:
   "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend
    to the death your right to say it"

--Michael Dillon

My company makes good money off balkanization of the 'net
and we are definitely *NOT* the only one. AOL has always
operated a network apart from the rest. The Internet is
so big now that some balkanization is inevitable and it
can even be a good thing. Do your customers care how
fast they can get to http://www.satka.ru or http://www.vernon.ca

Erm... sorry to pee on your parade here but I have customers all over
the world. Russia, Canada, China .. I have this feeling that if I
tried that experiment I'd be neck deep in users screaming at me in
russian, canuck-ified french and a few hundred other languages

way to find out is to let them have a go. It has been
almost 10 years now since the first alternative root
(Alternic) started operation. The fact that this has not
simply faded away shows that there may be something
to it.

Has it, like, you know, spread?

Any OSs / distros etc that include it in their default root.hints, or
maybe their /service/dnscache/root/servers/@?

Their entrepreneurial spirit is consistent with the
free and open way in which the Internet has developed.
Remember the paraphrase from Voltaire:

I love these analogies about the free and open internet. It is, to
borrow that much maligned cliche from Al Gore or whoever, a
superhighway. As in "you are welcome to exercise your enterpreneurial
spirit and your pioneering sense of going where no man has ever gone
before, and do stuff like, for example, jaywalking across it - that
way you end up roadkill.

Or you could strike out into parts unknown, leave the mainstream alone
and enjoy the lifestyle Dan'l Boone and the other mountain men must
have had, not seeing any other human being for weeks. Sure, a whole
lot of people like that built America but well, it took them a few
centuries. By which time they're their own island, far away from the
mainstream

I'm done with this thread, I see it proceeding in a rather predictable
direction, but as you quoted Voltaire, I'll leave you with this -

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

-- John Donne

It is quite interesting to see how a sermon preached in the 1600s
remains as relevant today, and in this context, as it was when it was
first preached