Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site cbosgd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: domains:  a view from bangland
Message-ID: <898@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 31-Jan-84 13:48:30 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.898
Posted: Tue Jan 31 13:48:30 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Feb-84 07:04:35 EST
References: <65@down.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Lines: 52


	peter honeyman:
	With this view, domain-ing *is* just another way of routing
	(a view i took every opportunity to express in dc).
There are indeed many similarities.  The key difference is that routes
are relative to the sender, domains are relative to the root of the tree,
so your domain based address is always the same no matter where the sender is.
And, of course, the delivery software need not traverse the exact path down
the domain tree to get the message to you, there are often better ways to
get it there.  However, I'm unclear how this fact fits into what you're
saying, I think it's similar.

	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 sounds amazingly similar to what we have in mind.  The key difference
is that, while the subdomains probably would be built around backbone sites,
they would be given names like NJ (New Jersey) and NE (New England), rather
than HARPO and LINUS, so that people would not have to change their published
mailing addresses when a backbone site decided it was somebody elses turn.
(The exact name is up to the subdomain to decide, of course, they would not
have to be geographic like these examples.  I tend to think in geographic
terms, but there is no reason to restrict domains to a geographic organization.)
	(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.)
Where you've left off the uucp! from the front, much as people might
like to leave off the .UUCP from the end of a domain address?  The
address uucp!harpo!cbosgd!mark looks a lot like mark@cbosgd.harpo.uucp,
doesn't it?  I hope that if you always type harpo!cbosgd!mark, you won't
insist that your mailer route it through harpo even though there's a
better link through allegra or directly (assuming it can be deterimined
that the cbosgd is the same machine).

	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.
Funny, there has been support in netnews for domains since last July.
Of course, netnews is not a mail transport mechanism, so all it has to
do is generate, preserve, and present domain addresses to the mail program,
it isn't up to netnews to figure out how to get it there.

	Mark Horton