uucp sitenames (6 letter uniqueness?!?)

[lauren at RAND-UNIX.ARPA]

From:  Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren at RAND-UNIX.ARPA>

Unfortunately, it is not up to me to decide how long sitenames should
be, I only implemented the decisions of the project, which is the ONLY
group (thanks partially to our modest funding by Usenix) that has any 
chance of organizing the network and allowing uucp sites to meet the
requirements necessary for inclusion as an Internet domain.

Existing sites with longer sitenames have problems, and we are encouraging
them to change their names if possible--many have already done so or are
in the process of doing so.  The 6 char bug is very unfortunate, but
has already spread to enough sites that we need to live with it for the
time being.  The problem of longer sitenames CANNOT be avoided by
sites that THEMSELVES are not capable of having a longer sitename.
For example: a site running software that allows a 14 char sitename can
communicate with sites running shorter sitenames.  If they are dealing
with a site that truncates their name (like "microsoft", which shows
up as "microso") the 14 char site can simply enter "microso" in their
tables.  This will allow communications, but might still cause problems
with mail addressed to microsoft! vs. microso!.  This, unfortunately,
isn't too easy to deal with, and the people in charge of the new software
that allows 14 char names have so far resisted my suggestion that a
table entry be present to indicate the extent to which other sites
truncate their names (which would be, as far as I can see, the "best"
solution).

The problem is much worse for the "normal" site (let's say with
a 7 char sitename max) that tries to communicate with sites named
foobar11 and foobar12.  In practice, it is impossible for them to 
deal with this situation, since uniqueness does not appear until the
8th character, and no table entries of any kind are going to help.

The long-term hope is that domain organization will help relieve some
of the naming problems, though the current decision is to try 
ensure that all sites have the theoretical ability to set up direct
connections with any other site.  Any other outcome could result
in uneconomical routings being forced simply because of naming
conflicts.

The situation is complex and confusing, but we're doing our best
to make some sense out of it.  Personally, I would have preferred
to put the name limit at 7 instead of 6, but I was outvoted
on this issue.  

Further discussions of these issues should probably be directed
to the Usenet uucp discussion groups and mailing lists which have been
designated for such purposes.  Thanks much.

--Lauren--