Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!pcg
From: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: Short-circuiting a route
Summary: But we mostly agree! Except on Internet parochialism...
Keywords: sendmail, smail, domain names
Message-ID: <1048@aber-cs.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jul 89 13:21:43 GMT
Reply-To: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Organization: Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth
	(Disclaimer: my statements are purely personal)
Lines: 64

In article <266@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes:
    In article <1039@aber-cs.UUCP> pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:

	[ ... on names and routes and their differences ... ]
    
    I beg to differ, and hold the following as tenets:
    
    1. The Domain Name System, as implemented in the U.S. by the set of
    root name servers operated on behalf of DDN and NSFNet, and
    implemented in other countries via central naming authorities, has
    preempted the field of host naming and mail forwarding.  Thus the "c"
    in "a.b.c" must be an approved top-level domain,

Agreed... (if you say "ought to" instead of "must")

    and "b.c" must be a domain known to the root name servers.  Otherwise
    the address is illegal and I do not feel any compunction about bouncing
    it.

Hear hear. Since when the British NRS is part of the internet domain server
scheme (they even use a different ordering for domains! :->)?  There are
loads of networks that use approved standardized host/domain names that are
not registered in the *Internet* domain servers. You want to dump all mail
from/to Germany or Italy? What about Japan?

    (Note to Mr. Grandi, this implies nothing about connectivity or
    routing.)
    
    2. Fully-qualified domain names (FQDNs) shall predominate in any
    hybrid or mixed-mode address, including a source route.

Agreed...

    The legitimate forms of address are those implied by reading the
    appropriate Internet RFCs.

If only... :->. But the British NRS and its coloured books do exist, and hold
sway in the 51st state. And similar things in other countries.

    Other forms of address, including UUCP bang paths, are obsolete, and are
    honored only as a matter of comity and backward compatibility by
    Internet hosts.

Are honored because a lot of people use them, and you don't want to cut the
Internet off them. Irrespective of the relative merits of the two schemes.
    
    3. Source routes are not favored, since they make assumptions about
    connectivity outside the local domain of the sender,

But dynamic routing, *except* when limited to prepending, does exactly the
same, and in addition tries to second guess the sender's routing maps.
    
    I guess this qualifies as strong Domain Absolutism, but heck, I think
    it's the only way to get people to get rid of obsolete stuff and join
    the commmunity.

Well, this is strong *US Govt. Darpa Internet* Domain Absolutism. As such it
has its merits; central administration and adherence to mandated standards
clearly makes life much more orderly.  Too bad that a lot of people cannot
or don't want to buy into that.
-- 
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi           | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth        | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk