We sent an engineer to California to discuss this with Paul Vixie, who operates one of the root name servers and is responsible for the software. We intend to follow Vixie's recommendations on hardware, software, and the way in which the root name server is attached to the LINX, which is in fact as you have described above.
Could someone maybe reconcile this with the offer of ready hardware I've had from Bill Manning ? I'm confused. I think we need a little more discussion between those who have plans and policy ideas here, and a rather less attempts at public point-scoring to the widest possible distribution.
I would expect that Paul Vixies recommendations fall closely in line with RFC 2010 and I would expect that any new root nameservers would fall under this document as far as operational activities are concerned. I will note that neither Paul or myself has the final say in this matter. One school of thought is for the IANA to provide the hardware the other is to have the organization provide it. The actual attachment would seem to be best served off a public exchange with the machine on its own prefix and behind its own AS. --bill