Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site down.FUN
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!scherzo!allegra!princeton!down!honey
From: honey@down.FUN (Peter Honeyman)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: The truth about .UUCP
Message-ID: <593@down.FUN>
Date: Sun, 22-Sep-85 21:47:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: down.593
Posted: Sun Sep 22 21:47:34 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 12:38:02 EDT
References: <583@down.FUN> <10386@ucbvax.ARPA> <621@decuac.UUCP> <310@uwvax.UUCP>
Organization: CS Dept., Princeton University
Lines: 61

you may recall my three questions for those who believe in .UUCP:

	1)  bilbo.UUCP?  (there are three.)
	2)  cbosgd.ATT.UUCP?  (what makes .ATT special?)
	3)  .IL.USA.UUCP?  (who runs it?)

i have seen three replies, from ucbvax!jordan, decuac!avolio, and
uwvax!dave.  perhaps more are forthcoming, but i'll address the
rebuttals made by jordan and fred.  (dave is a good guy, and his note
requires no illumination on my part.)

jordan misses the point by a wide mark.  for (1), he turns the question
around ("you tell us!").  ok, jordan, to make it perfectly clear, i
can't do anything with bilbo.UUCP.  on the other hand, princeton!bilbo,
u-mt!bilbo, or wiretap!bilbo yield useful routes.

after belittling the question, jordan goes on to attack it as
meaningless.  he suggests that we all fit into some name space (or we
won't get mail) and dispense with uucp routing altogether.  a fine
example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  he claims that
domain addressing will replace uucp routing altogether.  jordan should
read the uux man page.

for (2) jordan refers us to his answer to (1), again missing the mark.
the issue here is the haphazard creation of domain tokens, not the
inner meaning of rfc 819.

for (3), jordan approaches the heart of the issue ("you don't just
*decide* that there will be this subdomain").  he describes how domains
are created in an ideal rfc-world, ignoring the fact that our world has
NO such structure, NO such organization, nor any obvious movement in
that direction.  i don't see jordan, or anyone else, volunteering to
act as the name server for .UUCP or any of its sub-ilk.

on to fred.

fred opens with a reference to down.FUN.  hmmm.  well, the plain truth
is, north and i wanted to eliminate the domainisms altogether, but upon
checking with horton, we were told that this would break netnews
software world-wide.  we took him at his word, leaving us with a
dilemma:  there was no .UUCP domain (still true), and we weren't in any
domain we knew about, so we dedicated our inews to the fun-people
mailing list.  we did not confuse netnews with mail; don't you make
that mistake.

fred goes on to remark that "this has all been said" (not on my screen
it hasn't), and that i should ignore the rfc's and just pretend that
things like .DEC (and, i infer, .UUCP) exist.  i call .DEC a standoff
-- i'll send *.DEC to fred if he'll admit that i have only his word
that it will work.  but back to the point:  .UUCP.  will you take that
too, fred?  me neither.

fred indicates that this bewilderment is all temporary.  sure, and so
is the human condition.

any other takers out there?  here's an easy one for jordan:  once you
have replaced uucp addressing with domains, what will your delivery
agent do with honey@princeton.UUCP?  uux is out, since it wants
something!princeton!honey.  what's the trick?

	peter


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