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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!scherzo!allegra!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!qantel!dual!lll-crg!seismo!rochester!ritcv!mjl
From: mjl@ritcv.UUCP (Mike Lutz)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: .UUCP domain and "sendmail"
Message-ID: <8937@ritcv.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-Oct-85 12:27:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: ritcv.8937
Posted: Sat Oct  5 12:27:51 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Oct-85 06:26:14 EDT
References: <10361@ucbvax.ARPA> <3700008@ndm20> <2841@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: mjl@ritcv.UUCP (Michael Lutz)
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
Lines: 45

In article <2841@sun.uucp> guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris) writes:
>
>I suspect the best solution is to set up the domain but not to assume that
>every UUCP site will join it.  Permit UUCP mail to work as it always has,
>but also permit sites to join the new domain and get whatever benefits it
>offers if they're willing to pay whatever costs it requires (installing new
>mailers, accepting the authority of the administrator of the subdomain that
>they join, whatever).  If nothing else, this should mean that pro-domainists
>and anti-domainists won't feel obliged to prove their opponents completely
>wrong before the experiment is started.
>
>	Guy Harris

Finally, some sanity in this discussion.

Up to now we've had two monologues pretending to be a dialogue:

1.	Jordan and company tell us how wonderful domains will be (reminds
	me of an IBM salesman joke), but skirting the persistent and
	pernicious "authority" problem.

2.	Peter and his allies tell us that domains would be wonderful
	but are impossible given the anarchic organization and chaotic
	growth of "UUCPnet."

Meanwhile, part time mail system administrators like me, just trying
to keep things reasonably in order, are excoriated by both sides
because our systems are too smart, too dumb, too archaic, too futuristic,
or whatever.

Guy's proposal is the first one I've seen which has any promise of
working.  If domains are accepted by the community, and appropriate
mailer s/w is cheap (= free?), sites will join .UUMAIL or whatever out
of self-interest.  If domains die, for political, economic, or
technological reasons, we still have '!' syntax to fall back on.

Finally, let's remember what this all about: exchange of electronic
messages in a reasonable manner.  Believe it or not, there are lots of
users out there who *only* want to do that.  Handing them the net.mail
archives when they are having problems with some arcane address
(domain-arcane or bang-arcane) is not a reasonable response.
-- 
Mike Lutz	Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY
UUCP:		{allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!mjl
CSNET:		mjl%rit@csnet-relay.ARPA