Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!spdcc!kaos!romkey
From: romkey@kaos.UUCP (John Romkey)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUCP gatewaying to CSNET, BITNET, ARPANet, etc.
Message-ID: <676@kaos.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 88 03:48:46 GMT
References: <101@mjbtn.UUCP> <306@mergvax.UUCP> <7025@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: romkey@kaos.UUCP (John Romkey)
Organization: Chaos; Somerville, MA
Lines: 25
Keywords: UUCP, gateways, domains, pathalias

In article <7025@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> bob@allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) writes:
> Iff the machine really is on the ARPAnet proper, then ".sub.dom.ain" will be
>".ARPA".

No! The .ARPA domain was originally created to ease the transition from a
domainless hostname system to the domain name system. The idea was to first
get everybody used to having domain names by tacking a ".ARPA" on the end
of their names (as MIT-XX became MIT-XX.ARPA). Then they would change from
the .ARPA domain to their own organization's domain (MIT-XX.ARPA becomes
XX.LCS.MIT.EDU - LCS = Laboratory for Computer Science for those who are
curious). As of yet, not everybody has their own domains - MILNET hosts
in particular have been very slow about this since the DDN wanted think
about it for a long time.

So there are some hosts still using .ARPA but they are not all on the ARPANET
itself and in the end the intention is that *no one* should be using
.ARPA.  XX.LCS.MIT.EDU is on the ARPANET; its proper name is in the MIT.EDU
domain.

Domains identify organizations, not networks.
-- 
			- john romkey
		...harvard!spdcc!kaos!romkey
		       romkey@kaos.uucp
		    romkey@xx.lcs.mit.edu