Area-code as uucp domains

[Erik E. Fair]

This discussion rightly belongs in net.mail, as you should know Mel,
because you have been making noises like you were among those present
at `the meeting' on that Tuesday night. I will attempt to move this
discussion to net.mail, and I will direct my subsequent responses
there.

There are two discussions going on here, and we should separate them
quickly, or forever be confused.

Those two discussions are:

	1) Splitting up our `name space' (or address space?) in such a way
		as to avoid overflowing the extant naming scheme and
		bury routing information into software, rather than people's
		heads.

	2) Qualify for a top level domain so that we can legitimately speak
		to the ARPANET on better than furtive grounds.

The idea, as I understand it, is to do number 2 first, and then subdivide
the domain as necessary. To do #2, there are certain requirements, as
stated by thomas at utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas). He said:

> Date: Mon, 23-Jan-84 20:34:33 PST
> 
> A domain must have two attributes:
> 1) a person who is "responsible" for all the sites in the domain - a
> domain administrator, and
> 2) a name-server which knows the actual address of all sites or
> subdomains.

In short, ARPA wants someone they can talk to when things go wrong, and
they want things such that they can mail to person at site.UUCP, and not
worry about the routing.

We could conceivably accomplish this with address translation at every
ARPANET gateway. The problem then reduces to keeping an up to date map,
and making sure that it is distributed to the gateways in a timely
fashion.

That, however, does not solve the problem I listed as #1 up there.
Depending upon who you believe, the network will grow vigorously or
explosively in the next few years, and the result will be more chaos
than we're used to. We will have sites with duplicate names turning up
in different parts of the country, and routing a letter from system A
to system B will be a nightmare.

Domains have been suggested as a solution to that problem, and
I have yet to hear anyone make a better suggestion. So instead of
arguing the merits of domains, let's formulate a plan of action.
I submit the following:

1. Map the network (already underway)
	(Thanks to parsec!kolstad, cbosgd!ksh, and wjh12!sob)
2. Write routing software to handle domain addresses (underway?)
3. Write a name server for ARPA.
4. Distribute the software EVERYWHERE.
5. Qualify for the `.UUCP' top level domain.
6. NOW begin discussion for domain sub-division.

Number 4 is one of the most important, because if the whole network
doesn't participate, we're dead.  We can provide a certain amount of
backward compatibility, but we can't have two network routing schemes
working side by side, particularly in light of the addressing
problems.  I'm trying to put off the sub-division discussion until we
have the software ready to handle the problem. It does no good to
discuss grandiose plans for sub-division, when the current routing
systems don't handle domains at all.

	Erik E. Fair

	dual!fair at BERKELEY.ARPA
	{ucbvax,ihnp4,cbosgd,amd70,zehntel,fortune,unisoft,onyx,its}!dual!fair
	Dual Systems Corporation, Berkeley, California

P.S.	Can we avoid use of loaded phrases & rhetoric? It only serves to
	heat the discussion beyond rationality.
	(This means you, mel at houxe.UUCP)