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Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!njin!uupsi!schoff
From: schoff@uu.psi.com (Martin Schoffstall)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,sci.astro
Subject: Re: Will there be a Great Unified Net?
Message-ID: <1990May26.182226.7277@uu.psi.com>
Date: 26 May 90 18:22:26 GMT
References: <1024@mpirbn.UUCP>
Reply-To: schoff@uu.psi.com (Martin Schoffstall)
Organization: Performance Systems International, Inc.
Lines: 32

>"The syntax required to send a message from one machine to
>another is often complicated, and there is no central register of electronnic
>addresses for users... The current state of computer networks is somewhat akin
>to telephone systems around the turn of the century - there are numerous 
>systems, some mutually incompatible, and some interconnected..."
>
There is substantial momentum today to conform to domain notation of the
form someuser@somehost.someplace.somecountry where "somecountry" is an
official ISO country code.  This helps alot.
>
>The Guide then gives many helpful hints how to overcome communications
>problems, and at the end it sounds an encouraging message: "Hopefully, in time,
>the current complexities of electronic mail will disappear and something like 
>the relative simplicity of the national and international telephone systems 
>will replace it."
>
In conjunction with other organizations in the UK, Sweden, etc.. PSI has
tried to take the X.500 Directory and between some administrative discipline
and a pilot schema created a WhitePages service.  In the US that has
brought 50 organizations and 300K records into the disribute system,
looking for "Martin Schoffstall" and ignoring the infrastructure information
of "somehost.someplace.somecountry" seems possible.
>
>Really? Are there concrete plans to abandon all computer networks for the Great
>Unified Net? I've little knowledge about the people/organizations behind all
>these nets - would there be a 'central authority' that could enforce such a
>unification?
>
I'd posit that there is a grass roots effort to make the Internet be the
"Unified Net" without a central authority, but based on market pressures.

Marty