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From: brunner@bullhead.UUCP (MH 6.6, Eric Brunner)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
Subject: Re: Domains Registered in November 1990
Message-ID: <9012042102.AA13531@bullhead.awdpa.ibm.com>
Date: 4 Dec 90 21:02:36 GMT
References: <47028@apple.Apple.COM>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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Two points, first, the use of "ZA" for the UNINET Project, second the use
of "SHOW.NET" for Uniforum.

Am I especially confused today or arn't we using ISO country codes where ever
possible? I'm clueless as to what the UNINET project is, but I'm guessing that
it isn't the fidonet hack to route South African traffic. Here is a fragment
of ISO 3166, posted last June or July:

From: Codes for the representation of names of countries.
      Third edition; ISO 3166: 1988 Aug 15; 53 p.

      Name                            2L      3L      Num
[scads of lines deleted]
      Somalia                         SO      SOM     706
      South Africa                    ZA      ZAF     710
      Spain                           ES      ESP     724
[more scads of lines deleted]

Nets for shows -- here are the ones that are regular, well, periodic, that I
know about:

USENIX	- usually set up by Ed Gould and Evi Nemuth et al, twice a year
InterOp	- Peter de Vries, Stev Knolles, Brigham, Romkey, Natalie, me, and
	  others, once a year
Net World - I don't know who sets this network up, I know a forklift tore
	  it down (ouch), once a year
UNIFORUM - I didn't know that Ed Palmer had decided to set up a network at
	   the next UNIFORUM, usually at the one-a-year USENIX-and-UNIFORUM-
	   in-the-same-city events, the network is set up by Ed and Evi.

In addition to this list there have been others and there will be others,
some have been associated with trade shows, others with technical conferences,
e.g., SIGGRAPH '89 (I bid on this one), and some will be single-vendor show
case demos. It seems like everyone calls the event that they are setting up
or using the "show net". This makes sense to me and I'd prefer that it remain
this way.

It is my understanding that InterOp uses "Shownet", and that Net World uses
"ShowNet" in their written references. It is also my understanding that the
NIC has allocated "SHOW.COM" to generic show nets for DNS resolution, and
that several network addresses (actually net 45, nets 130.128 and 130.129,
and a class C network which I've forgotten) have been allocated as well.
The parties to the agreement are Sue Romano (NIC) and Peter de Vries (ACE),
and the terms are as I've described, not especially intended for the the
exclusive benefit of InterOp (nee ACE).

All this so that anyone could attach what I think of as a mayfly network
(adult mayflys live for a day or so, mate and become trout food) to the inter
net without having to go through the motions of getting a network number
allocated and domain registered, each one, each time, and probably forgetting
to free either the number or domain afterwards.

I'd like the new top-level "SHOW.NET" domain de-allocated, and mapped to the
top level "SHOW.COM" domain. I'd prefer that traffic sent to

	postmaster@show.{com, net}

went to the same place, who ever is actually running a show network at
the time the DNS lookup is attempted. This way, which ever of us is actually
putting up a net and attaching to the internet doesn't have to do anything
other than just "get it right". It's pretty unlikely given the established
schedules of each of the groups I mention (due to hotel/site requirements,
we calander 5 years in advance) that there is going to be frequent overlaps
of usage of either the domain or the addresses. Also, we could have our users
just use the "luser@show.net", without having to explain how and why the top
level of the DNS is set up the way it is -- the sophisticates might use the
.COM domain, but they are not the majority. Generally speaking, I'd like the
addressing convention of

	ibm-booth-owner@show.com
or
	my-pal@show.net

to get my mail (and other people's too I suppose) to the right place, not some
portion dumped on the floor over at Uniforum's new offices.

I also think that it is "not on" that a for-profit entity which is an event
provider (rock concerts, trade shows), which is only incidently a production
network provider, to be registered any other way than as a "COM" domain.

I don't suppose that SHOW.EDU, SHOW.ORG, SHOW.GOV will arise, though there
are some mayfly examples of each that come to mind.

I'll call Ed Palmer and Ralph Barker over at Uniforum after lunch time
and find out why they asked for a top level domain for their once-a-year,
one-week show. Perhaps they didn't know they could use show.com and get a
class A net address at no extra charge. I'll follow up.