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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!down!honey
From: honey@down.FUN (Peter Honeyman)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: The truth about .UUCP
Message-ID: <583@down.FUN>
Date: Sat, 14-Sep-85 14:14:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: down.583
Posted: Sat Sep 14 14:14:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Sep-85 00:25:41 EDT
References: <552@down.FUN>
Organization: CS Dept., Princeton University
Lines: 61

In [552@down], I compared the uucp and domain name spaces.  This note
continues that (one-sided) debate.

.UUCP never was, ain't now, and never will be a domain.  But .UUCP is
just the tip of the iceberg.  I am seeing strange and wonderful domain
addresses proposed in net.mail and elsewhere, as well as in mail
headers:

	cbosgd.ATT.UUCP
	cbosgd.IL.USA.UUCP
	down.PRINCETON.EDU
	ittvax.ATC.ITT.UUCP
	utzoo.TORONTO.EDU
	utzoo.ON.CAN
	vortex.DEC
	vortex.UUCP

I view this morass with utter bewilderment, bordering on contempt,
since not one of the above is truly a domain (as defined in RFCs 819
and 920).  I am in no better position to produce electronic routes for
the above than for their domain-free equivalents.

A top-level domain is one that is recognized as such by sri-nic.
Subdomains are registered with the authority for the higher-level
domain.  Nothing else fits the bill.

Many contributors to this newsgroup view domains as a naming scheme,
nothing more.  This gives cold comfort to programmers (like me), after
all a domain authority and name service might be exploited in pathalias
and pathparse.  But without these attributes, there is no stopping two
postmasters from asserting "that's MY domain."  This leaves me (and all
of us) holding the ball.

Haphazard invention of domain names adds no expressive power.  In
particular, attaching .UUCP to a host name is about as useful as
running it through DES.

Domains serve to facilitate name space control.  They require
administration from above and consent from below.  In [552@down], I
argued that the style and substance of uucp addressing is incompatible
with domains.  I still don't have the answer to questions like

	1) What do I do with "bilbo.UUCP"?  (There are at least three
	   uucp hosts named bilbo.)

	2) By what reasoning is "cbosgd.ATT.UUCP" better than
	   "cbosgd"?  (Any answer must satisfy members of the
	   Albanian Turban Traders domain.)

	3) What does .IL.USA.UUCP mean?  RFC 920 [p. 11] asks for "the
	   name, title, mailing address, phone number, and organization
	   of the administrative head of the organization."  Who will
	   answer?

The issues are not whether geographic domains make sense, or whether
trailing dots are allowed, or even how d.osg.cb.att.uucp should be
routed; the issues are more basic than that.  Absent any concrete
mechanism for name space control (and enforcement!) in the uucp
"domain", I take a dim view of debates over the fine points.

	Peter