Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!joyce!zodiac!zooks!jordan
From: jordan@zooks.ads.com (Jordan Hayes)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: the crucial distinction
Message-ID: <5705@zodiac.UUCP>
Date: 7 Oct 88 19:50:45 GMT
References: <9@jove.dec.com>
Sender: news@zodiac.UUCP
Reply-To: jordan@ads.com (Jordan Hayes)
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mt. View, CA (415) 960-7300
Lines: 29

Paul Vixie <vixie@decwrl.dec.com> writes:

	But there are many sites worth sending mail to that do not have
	and will never have a domain name; they are reachable by a
	dotless UUCP name, and I need to be able to tell a passive
	rerouter to find a route to it, and I can't use .UUCP reliably
	because so many MTA's strip it out (including my own).

Very well.  They need not ever see a domain-ized version of their
address.  However, it should become their responsibility to speak the
correct language if they wish to interoperate with me.  There are
plenty of mailing systems out there that have no idea who they are
talking to -- they need to have a gateway do the correct translations
for them, if they are unable to do them by themselves.

Machine foobar gets themselves a domain, administered by
sales.big-co.com, and has a uucp link (transport issues, of course, are
beyond this note -- it could as easily be any other kind of mail
system) to them.  When they get a message from foobar!user that's
headed into the outside world, they change it to read From:
user@foobar.stubborn.com and they provide MX service for them as well.
When stuff comes in for them, the reverse is applied.

Last I heard, this is called "gatewaying" and it's useful.

When will the rest of the sane world be finished paying for the sins of
those sites who are unwilling (unable?) to speak Italian in Rome?

/jordan