Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi
From: dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Domain Registration
Message-ID: <7589@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>
Date: 5 Jun 89 15:23:52 GMT
References: <1105@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> <KARL.89May31103452@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu> <7518@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <1120@uceng.UC.EDU> <107917@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <1137@uceng.UC.EDU>
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi)
Distribution: na
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 32

In article <1137@uceng.UC.EDU> kamat@uceng.UC.EDU (Govind N. Kamat) writes:
>The domain system (DNS) places no restrictions on the content
>of domain names; ...

That's not the problem.  The problem is that the domain naming system,
while claiming to allow a "local part" to be interpreted by the host,
in fact wants that local part to have a specific syntax.  More
importantly, in a multi-network system there will be many local parts,
one for each network, and the domain naming system makes it nearly
impossible to have this.

>However, it is not reasonable to expect the world at
>large to continue to provide special treatment for various "internally
>well-connected" networks like the hypothetical XNET.  Which is what
>Rahul Dhesi was suggesting.

I was suggesting nothing of the sort.  (The Internet is not "the
world", by the way.)  I was essentially saying, "if you want to get
mail to a BITNET host, just give it to a gateway and let BITNET be 100%
responsible for delivering it."

The ONLY part of a bitnet address that another network should look at
should be a trailing .BITNET string, which identifies the network.
Therefore

   <jklsjdf><<<Jkldf>>!%%%!x@b#&*()$jsdfkjljsd;fadf&*7987904klj;l;.BITNET

should be a valid address.  It isn't, and that's half the problem.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>
UUCP:    ...!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi
Career change search is on -- ask me for my resume