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Path: utzoo!watmath!deepthot!julian
From: julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies)
Newsgroups: net.mail.msggroup
Subject: Re: New topic, name domains vs. IFIP "user-friendly" non-domain names
Message-ID: <311@deepthot.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-May-84 15:50:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: deepthot.311
Posted: Thu May 17 15:50:23 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 18-May-84 06:23:01 EDT
References: <564@hou3c.UUCP>
Organization: UWO CS, London Canada
Lines: 54

I gather this is quite a controversial topic in some USA circles.
A response to Marvin Sirbu, which doesn't claim to settle
the question...

  Regarding the idea that the IFIP naming scheme identifies User
Agents, which are 'mail processes' rather than some kind of
arbitrary machine specifier...
   I do see the distinction between 'names' and 'addresses' as crucial
to making sense of this.  The Directory Service is supposed to
provide a translation from 'names' to 'addresses';  The address will
be something on the nature of a Session Service Access Point, and
could be a process identifier or a specific machine address (e.g.
X.121) with extra protocol identifier specifications.  IFIP names
do not (as yet) have an agreed format for being typed.  The
name
	Canada, University_of_Western_Ont, Julian_Davies
is suposed to be something that is guessable and/or easy to remember.
It is up to the directory server to remember that that name is
associated with an address which currently could look like
	djmdavies%uwo-hobbit.MLNET@uwo.UUCP
or	302031500076.FTMAIL.djmdavies	  {these are both slightly
						invented}
or could be an .ARPA address, or something else which includes
specific machine and userid codes.  The point is not that my
mailbox "process" floats around, but that other people don't need
to remember exactly where it is.  For users at MIT, IFIP names
could look like
	USA, MIT, <personal name>
and never mind whether the mailbox is on MIT-MULTICS, or MIT-AI, or
MIT-whatever (maybe somewhere down on a LAN).

---------------
Domains regarded as not having specific semantics, or more precisely
not having 'types', while IFIP name components are 'typed':

This is a fair comment.  I think only trying it out will settle
the matter of what is "best", which presumably means easiest to
manage and use.  The IFIP name I quoted for myself should perhaps
have been given as
  C="Canada", O="Univ of Western Ont", PN=("Julian", "Davies")
to make the infrastructure clearer.  Showing the types of the
attributes or components involved means that the elements do not
have to be given in any specific order, whereas the domain-oriented
name/address makes order significant.  It is a matter of personal
taste perhaps.  The typed structuring does lend itself to being
represented within the scheme of X.409 (Presentation Transfer Syntax
and Notation) for representing typed data structures in messages.
Some people think that it will be easier for ordinary people to
use.  Anyone who does not like it could presumably keep on typing
addresses directly, and ARPA-style domain-based names count as
addresses in my view.  A lot will depend on the quality of the user
interfaces and of the directory service.

UUCP:  ..watmath!deepthot!julian