This therefore leads to two questions for the community:
1. Are well known ports archaic? If so, can we request that the IANA
do away with the distinction?
2. If they are not archaic, under what circumstances should they be
allocated?
My opinion:they are archaic and should be dropped. A number is a number, and the Unix "protection" policy has led directly to security exploits because processes were running as root because they "had to" in order to open a low port number.
That said - we need advice on, and probably a distinction between, "dynamic" ports and "ports that you get by asking for them". OSes may also want to attach specific ACLs to specific ports on specific systems - but that's outside of what the IETF has traditionally set standards for.
My short term advice to netconf:Flip a coin. Heads, go for a system port. Tails, go for a well known port. It's more important to get past the issue than what you decide.
My two cents.
Harald
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