Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site harvard.ARPA
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!kevin
From: kevin@harvard.ARPA (Kevin Crowston)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Domains
Message-ID: <266@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 21-Jul-85 18:47:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.266
Posted: Sun Jul 21 18:47:46 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Jul-85 04:51:11 EDT
References: <918@sdcsvax.UUCP> <55500002@hpfclo.UUCP>
Reply-To: kevin@harvard.UUCP (Kevin Crowston)
Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
Lines: 23

>	An example of what I'd like to see:
>	    if I want to get mail here (say, at hpfclo.FC.HP.COM),
>	    someone should be able to send to hpfclo.COM from anywhere.

Unfortunately, there may be more than one hpfclo's in the world (well,
maybe not hpfclo, but perhaps VAXA?  One at HP, one at MIT, one ...).
Part of the usefulness of domains is that the specific name of the
host need not be unique, only the full name.

Furthermore, your scheme still requires someone to know about
everybody on the net or that everyone on the net take a look at your
message, as you route it around to increasingly smarter hosts.

Also, what happens if I mail to hpfcl0.HP.COM?  Since no host knows
about it (it probably doesn't exist), who eventually bounces it back
if everyone just forwards it to someone smarter?
Giving the full name hpfclo.FC.HP.COM only requires that you
can find the COM name server, which in turn can find the HP server, etc.

-- 

Kevin Crowston				UUCP: {seismo,ut-sally}!harvard!kevin
MIT Sloan School of Management		ARPA: kevin@harvard.ARPA