Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!utastro!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Standardizing Email?
Message-ID: <7288@bigtex.uucp>
Date: 31 Aug 88 03:27:07 GMT
References: <788@vsi.UUCP> <79700010@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <738@etive.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen)
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 27

In article <738@etive.ed.ac.uk>, jcb@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Julian Bradfield) wrote:

> But even if the `standard' is intended solely for American use (the
> structuring you give seems to be only for American Anglo-Saxon(ized)
> names), not everybody in the U.S. has an American name!

It's not clear that X.400 is intended for American use at all: we've
already got RFC-822.  X.400's primary problem is connectivity: if
you run X.400, who can you talk to in a world of RFC-822?

How would X.400 deal with people who appear otherwise identical by
name and geography?  When I lived at home, there was no end to the
confusion causes by having two people with identical names, at
identical names, both involved in the computer industry.  Such
confusion can be useful, such as when I got my first credit card, but
I gather X.400 would like to eliminate it.  What kind of specification
of address is going to solve the problem?  Neither my dad nor I use
the "James Van Artsdalen II" nonsense.

This has led to a number of amusing situations, because people tend to
assume that if they've got *a* James Van Artsdalen, they've got *the*
James Van Artsdalen.

PS. I know several people with either no middle name or an ambiguous
    middle name (ambiguous because not all official documents agree).
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen    ...!uunet!utastro!bigtex!james     "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746