Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!wang!fitz From: fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Imminent death of UUCP Zone predicted Message-ID: Date: 20 Jul 90 21:26:00 GMT References: <100@raysnec.UUCP> <269B82AE.415E@intercon.com> <707@logicon.com> <1990Jul16.200955.29906@chinet.chi.il.us> <712@logicon.com> Organization: Wang Labs, Lowell MA, USA Lines: 25 Makey@Logicon.COM (Jeff Makey) writes: > It's the sites that *don't* prepend their own names to the header > addresses that cause problems. More precisely, the problem is caused > by the fact that some sites prepend their own names and others don't. If valid RFC822 addresses weren't rewritten into ! addresses in the first place, this wouldn't be a problem. > If everybody did it, headers would all have nice complete bang-paths > in them. ....which often aren't usable. First of all, they're very often nonoptimal. If the optimal path from a to e is a!b!c!d!e, the optimal path from e to a is frequently _not_ e!d!c!b!a. This happens because of polling intervals and different choices about routing and transport by the intermediates. Occasionally (maybe 2% of the time) the reversed path isn't even usable. And the fact remains that not all sites prefix the path with their nodename. If we're going to adopt a method that requires all the nodes in the UUCP net to change their behavior, why not get everyone to become RFC822 conformant so that !-paths aren't necessary at all? --- Tom Fitzgerald Wang Labs fitz@wang.com 1-508-967-5278 Lowell MA, USA ...!uunet!wang!fitz