Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mcnc!thorin!pi!brock
From: brock@pi.cs.unc.edu (J. Dean Brock)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
Subject: Politics of domain naming sytles (unc.edu)
Message-ID: <14988@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 4 Jul 90 21:32:56 GMT
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Lines: 39

philipp@GIPSI.GIPSI.FR (Philippe Prindeville) writes:
>
>...  Sort of like the UC mess,
>Berkeley.Edu instead of Berkeley.UC.Edu, etc.

You're getting close to a touchy point with many American state universities.

For example, unc.edu is actually the domain of University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.  The EDU domain already has four other registered institutions
(unca.edu, uncc.edu, uncg.edu, uncwil.edu) whose official names
are of the form "University of North Carolina at *".  (Plus there's
uncecs -- University of North Carolina Educational Computer Service.)

Why are they not all of the form *.unc.edu?  (Or the California ones
of the form *.UC.edu?)  Well, the universities themselves are
really quite independent.  There is an administrative body called the
"University of North Carolina" but the universities don't consider
themselves branches of that administrative body.

Why does one university call itself unc.edu, rather than uncch.edu?
Most state university system started with one campus founded
many, many years before the others.  The Chapel Hill campus was
founded in 1789 (making it one of three state universities
claiming to be the oldest in the United States).  After a
hundred plus years of being the only University of North Carolina,
people start to assume the one in Chapel Hill is the default.
Also, it's alumni are quick to point out that UNC-CH is THE UNC.
(And even quicker to argue with South Carolinians about what
university is THE Carolina.  Oh, the other one once had the
nerve to use the "carolina" alias in the CSNET.)

And, finally, UNC-Chapel Hill was the first one of the UNC-*s
to register and that's what really counts -- right?


However, it is sometimes difficult to map the common name of
the university to the domain name, uiuc.edu was one with which
I had troble.  Is domain registration always first-come-first-served?
Are there any rules, either written or informally enforced?