Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site down.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!mcvax!cbosgd!mhuxl!ulysses!princeton!down!honey
From: honey@down.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: domains:  a view from bangland
Message-ID: <65@down.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-Feb-84 23:53:08 EST
Article-I.D.: down.65
Posted: Mon Feb  6 23:53:08 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Feb-84 00:51:30 EST
Organization: Princeton Univ. EECS
Lines: 40
Apparently-To: philabs!mcvax!rnews


i was hacking pathalias tables the other day, messing around with the
wjh12!bitnethost%user vs. psuvax!user@bitnethost.BITNET controversy.
it wasn't that hard to solve -- i think it was something like
	BITNETDOMAIN = @{...}(DIRECT)
	BITNETSITES = {...}%(DIRECT)
	BITNET BITNETDOMAIN(0)
	psuvax .BITNET
	wjh12 BITNETSITES
i treat BITNET exactly like a site name, which is consistent with
my suspicion about domains:  they are site names in disguise.  for
example, domainists talk about a domain registry, doing name serving or
some other jargony thing.  i don't know how a domainist views the
concept of "BITNET-ness", but for me it suffices to conceive of whatever
site does the trick for bitnet.  (according to my tables, that's
psuvax.  and i don't lose sleep worrying how psuvax will handle mail to
psuvax!BITNET!root.)  with this view, domain-ing *is* just another way
of routing (a view i took every opportunity to express in dc).  BITNET
is psuvax (or any site with a bitnet table), ARPA is any site that will
gateway to arpaland, MILNET is ... etc.  the only hassle is UUCP, where
route tables are ad hoc.

we now get into the whole domain naming farce (now playing in your
nearest newsgroup).  the geographical boundaries of domains are a red
herring;  the real issue is the quality of a registry's routing
tables.  so here's my proposal (in domainist notation): let's have a
UUCP domain (what the heck), and invent a few other domains called
HARPO, ULYSSES, LINUS, and the rest of the backbone sites, sites where
mailaholics keep the quality of local tables high.  (local means
whatever you like -- we're talking operational view here -- a site is
local if the path to it is known.)  backbones then route mail through
the various domains.  (this should be recognizable as standard uucp
routing; you'll forgive me if i say harpo!cbosgd!mark instead of
mark@d.OSG.CB.ATT.HARPO.UUCP.)

i kidded a domainist in dc that the only way domains would take hold in
the usenet world would be to integrate them into netnews.  what i'm now
proposing is that we take the best of usenet -- it's connectivity --
and build on that.
	peter honeyman