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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Mail addressing and routing
Message-ID: <1451@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Sep-85 02:07:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1451
Posted: Mon Sep  2 02:07:50 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Sep-85 00:52:08 EDT
References: <644@adobe.UUCP> <734@vortex.UUCP> <1156@umcp-cs.UUCP> <263@ncr-sd.UUCP> <1370@umcp-cs.UUCP> <271@ncr-sd.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 39

In article <271@ncr-sd.UUCP> greg@ncr-sd.UUCP (Greg Noel) writes:
>The concept of a name-resolver was well-received, although it seemed to
>be new to a lot of people.  Some seemed to think that I originated the
>idea.  Sorry, 'tain't so.  I believe that several sites within AT&T run
>such a name resolver; ihnp4 is one that I know about.  I just wanted the
>facility to be more readily available.  (It may even be possible to use
>the ihnp4 code -- does anyone know the history of that program?  Or more
>information on what it will do?)

We looked at the possibility of doing the ihnp4/post style thing as
part of a standard.  (Basically, mail to ihnp4!mark.r.horton works,
as will as ihnp4!gjm, the former is a person name, the latter a host.)
There was one killer problem: what do you do with ihnp4!horton?  Is
it a login name or a surname?  What if it's both?  How do you decide
this syntactically, given the layering of a real system?

As a result, the standardized syntax for personal names will probably
look something like this:
	ihnp4!/pn=Horton_Mark_R
which is a special case of a more general MHS X.400 address.  In some
ways this is not as pretty, but we know how to implement it in all cases.

>Then again, it may not be possible.  One of my respondants suggested that
>AT&T is moving away from RFC-based things and that they may not accept a
>public-domain version of their mail-name resolver.  Anybody have any
>insight on this?

AT&T is too large to be moving in only one direction at once.  Right
now there seem to be three major directions: UUCP bang syntax, RFC920
domain syntax, and X.400 MHS syntax.  The long term favorite is MHS.

As to accepting a public domain piece of software, the issues have
nothing to do with the mailer, but rather involve market demand and
support.  If there is market demand for such a feature and a program
to do it were dropped into their lap, the only real questions are
whether it fits into the long term plans, and whether resources can
be allocated to support it.  None of these issues is at all clear.

	Mark