Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!thor!pcg From: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains Subject: Re: CS top-level domain and its impact on the UK? Message-ID: Date: 22 Jul 90 16:24:54 GMT References: <9007101320.AA03269@dockside.mitre.org> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 53 In-reply-to: lazear@GATEWAY.MITRE.ORG's message of 10 Jul 90 13:20:51 GMT In article <9007101320.AA03269@dockside.mitre.org> lazear@GATEWAY.MITRE.ORG writes: Perhaps it's time to bite the bullet and admit that there needs to be a more formal interface between the UK scheme and the rest of the Internet? The problem that many USA and GB alike people seem to constantly forget is that JANET and PSS ar *not* on the Internet in any sense of the world. They are not part of the Internet, period. The fact that a Janet address looks like an Internet address with the domains in reverse order is entirely (well, almost) coincidental. The fact that in the Internet the top level domain country code is GB for the United Kingdom and CS for Czechoslovakia has no relevance whatever for Janet and PSS, whose name spaces are administered by the NRS according to rules that are not the Internet ones, even if there are points of contact and similarities, that however engender a lot of confusion. When I see discussions by people quoting RFCs and wishing that everybody conform to them, e.g. register in the DNS, etc..., they seem to constantly forget that the Internet is *one* net, even if the largest. If the people on the Internet harbor the delusion that everybody must respect the relevant RFCs, or else, they will lose connectivity with not just the UUCP world, but also the UK, BITNET, and many others. The next step in the evolution of the Internet is to recognize that there are many Internets, and not only you want to link together many networks running the same homogenous set of protocols and conventions, but also heterogenous ones, e.g. at least: Internet UUCP BITNET Janet/PSS DECnet On the other hand I wish that we all belonged to the Internet. I'd much have preferred an XNS based, rather than a TCP/IP based, Internet, but alas -- this is an impossible dream. What I sure do not want to see, and I semm not to be alone as apparently many sites are migrating as quickly away from it as they can, is an ISO/GOSIP based Internet taking shape -- things like Janet (i.e. its protocols) are a relic of the past. Still, the practical point is that the Internet is most convenient, yet it is not the only internet around. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk