Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!cbnews!mark
From: mark@cbnews.ATT.COM (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Make official top-level 'UUCP' domain as stop-gap measure?
Message-ID: <2214@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 18 Nov 88 21:02:00 GMT
References: <5520@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Reply-To: mark@cbnews.ATT.COM (Mark Horton)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 30

In article <5520@saturn.ucsc.edu> ulmo@splat.aptos.ca.us (Brad Allen) writes:
>It occurs to me as a fairly good idea to register UUCP as an
>official top-level domain with the NIC as a temporary 'stop-gap'
>type measure, along with willing domain name servers for this domain
>using the UUCP Map data as source data for this information.
>MX's would be returned to an appropriate site for any requests to the
>".UUCP" top-level domain.

Technically, it's trivial to do.  But it won't happen.  We tried to get
the NIC to do this years ago, and they flatly refused.

The NIC's direction is toward organizational domains and away from
topological names like .UUCP, .BITNET, .CSNET, and .ARPA.  They are
stuck with .ARPA for upward compatibility (and because the military,
who pay the bills, demand it.)  But they won't register any additional
names like this.

Let's face it, we asked for it as a transition aid in Jan 1986.  (We
were turned down.)  It's been nearly 3 years.  Has the use of .UUCP
gone down?  Are we any closer to being rid of it now than we were
then?  I don't think so.  So claiming it's "temporary" is just not
realistic.

Also, getting somebody to be forwarder for 10,000 random machines that
are all too (disorganized,anarchistic,poor,lazy,whatever) to formally
register, handle all that traffic, and deal with all the headaches when
mail can't be delivered, would be asking an awful lot.  I sure wouldn't
want to do it if I had a suitable site.

	Mark Horton