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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!jordan
From: jordan@ucbvax.ARPA (Jordan Hayes)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Why "From cbosgd!cbosgd.ATT.UUCP!chris" isn't stupid
Message-ID: <8126@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 13-Jun-85 12:54:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8126
Posted: Thu Jun 13 12:54:43 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Jun-85 04:40:54 EDT
References: <1269@houxm.UUCP> <1862@ukma.UUCP> <1055@peora.UUCP>
Reply-To: jordan@ucbvax.UUCP (Jordan Hayes)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 41
Keywords: mailers, domains, archaic software, ambiguous explanations

In article <1055@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes:

>> We need to have mailers which will route mail around without people
>> having to know complete paths.  Paths change.  Are hard to discover.
>> Sometimes are hidden.  Might be broken due to hardware failures.
>> A lot of things.  But if you do something like the domain style addressing
>> then there's a whole host of improvements that can be made.
>
> I keep seeing statements like this.  Are we saying that using domains to
> qualify site names is going to help this problem, or just that automatically
> generating the routing without the user having to specify it is going to
> do this?
>-- 
>Full-Name:  J. Eric Roskos

Domains will localize the problems of knowing exactly how to get from a
to z via b,c,d... in advance. Essentially it will allow sites to be
"local_experts" who can change actual routing to "local_sites" or to
<--> from the next domain, but joe_blow@a doesn't have to know the
entire topology of the net to get his message to jane_snow@z. Certainly
nothing can help the problem of sites going down or changing who they
trust enough to call, but joe just wants to put his mail in a mail box
and have jane get it sometime soon.

Hopefully the domains will be flexible enough so that changes in the
local routing won't be disasterous to performance.

routing != addressing (at least with domains). UUCP is too big for that
anymore. users should not have to be concerned about local site
politics that govern routing. Also, it becomes the responsibility of
each individual host administrator to make sure that the routing it
does is as efficient as possible. Those decisions can only be made by
someone who knows what's going on at his site. Not by poor joe who
doesn't even know what ihnp4 *stands* for ;~)

Enough discussion. When are we going to see some *action* ??!

/jordan
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ARPA:	jordan@ucb-vax.BERKELEY.EDU
UUCP:	jordan@ucbvax.UUCP