Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Who pays the bill? Message-ID: <66636@sgi.sgi.com> Date: 10 Aug 90 19:44:09 GMT References: <26A738A8.725B@tct.uucp> Sender: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 47 In article , bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes: > ... The only naming authority that exists to arbitrate between > UUCP sites is the UUCP Mapping Project, which registers names to > (among other things) guarantee uniqueness. They won't accept a > hostname containing dots unless it's a FQDN because of the immense > confusion that would result. The word "authority" is rather strong with respect to UUCP. UUCP is more of an anarchy than USENET every imagined. The machines connected via UUCP must include anything that a chain of !'s can reach, including lab prototypes suffering initial UNIX ports. At best, the Mapping Project is authoritative about the validity of the left-most hostname of a UUCP route, when such routes are examined by hundreds of thousands of machines which have agreed to accept the Project's authority. Everyone agrees that the UUCP Mapping Project is the authority for the second host name in "decwrl!sgi.com!vjs" but "the NIC" is. Similarly, the UUCP Mapping Project is not the authority for anything after the first ! in "psuvax1!bar.bitnet!user" or "trash!foo.bar.com!user". The Mapping Project is great, but it is no more authorative for all UUCP routes than the U.S. Postal Services is the authority for all mail addresses, even in the U.S. You can make up any sort of "suite," "mail stop," or other "local" convention you wish, provided only that the USPS can understand the street address, city, state, and zip-code. I believe anything to the right of the first "!" in a UUCP route must be considered a "local part" analogous to anything left of the "@" in a simple, non-SR RFC-822 address. The fact that ...!trash!bozo.foo.bar!user looks like it contains a FQDN is a illusion. It is just as wrong to complain that "bozo.foo.bar" is a bad domainname in that UUCP context as it is to complain that "user%bozo.foo.bar@trash.com" or "v.schryver@SGI.COM" contain invalid FQDNs in their local parts. Such complaints presumes to know what is on the otherside of the "trash", "trash.com", or "sgi.com" gateways or mail handlers. RFC-822 is wonderful. RFC-822 is perfect. Nothing could be better than RFC-822. RFC-822 is not the entire universe. RFC-822 is not UUCP. UUCP is not RFC-822. Vernon Schryver vjs@sgi.com