Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!mcb
From: mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: The UUCP domain
Summary: BITNET is *not* a domain.
Message-ID: <229@ncis.tis.llnl.gov>
Date: 8 Jun 89 17:31:46 GMT
References: <1393@istop.ist.CO.UK> <560@lakart.UUCP>
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 21

In article <560@lakart.UUCP> dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes:
> From article <1393@istop.ist.CO.UK>, by neil@ist.CO.UK (Neil Todd):
> > One problem is that the uucp domain is a flat namespace, there can be
> > exactly one ixi.uucp in the world.
> 
> This is not a problem in itself - .bitnet is a real live domain, and it's
> as flat as a millpond.

BITNET is *not* a "real live domain" at all.  Its status is exactly
the same as UUCP, that is, a pseudo-domain understood by some mailers.
The "real live domains" (i.e., top-level domains) consist of the set
{COM, EDU, GOV, MIL, NET, NET, ORG, US} for the U.S., and the ISO 2-letter
country abbreviations for other countries (of which there are
approximately 35 or 40 currently organized and registered).  The
listing of registered top-level domains is in the file DOMAINS.TXT in
the directory NETINFO on the host SRI-NIC.ARPA, available for
anonymous FTP.

--
Michael C. Berch  
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb