Area-code as uucp domains - (nf)

[rpw3 at fortune.UUCP]

#R:hogpc:-32500:fortune:26900019:000:2608
fortune!rpw3    Feb  3 02:58:00 1984

To repeat Erik Fair, the discussion in net.mail is "better", since those
who are actively working on it are posting there.

But... Who can resist? I would just like to point out:

	Geograhically based names are no good for geographically
	dispersed sites in the same domain. (What SINGLE area code
	is ".DEC", ".ATT", ".HP", or for that matter, ".Fortune"?)
	Geographic names are good for selecting routes, hence should
	be used for "addresses".

	The concept of "domains" is precisely to isolate the "naming"
	of resouces/hosts/people from the "route" to them. One wants
	"user at group.org.UUCP" to be reachable by anyone who has a path
	to ANY gateway into "org", no matter how many machines that
	is or where they are, much less what "group" is. (The nature
	of "group" is PRIVATE to "org" domain's administrator and itself
	may be more than one machine. Only the "group" administrator
	needs to know what machine "user" gets mail on.)

	Some geographical sub-domains may be necessary to accommodate
	a large number of single sites who do not wish to expend the
	resources to maintain full routing tables. I strongly suspect
	that these will follow the lines of the current regional
	newsgroup names. For example, there will probably be a ".ba.UUCP"
	for the San Francisco Bay Area, a territory that is naturally
	treated as a unit and that extends over several area codes.
	But many sites in the Bay Area will be part of nationally
	(or internationally) dispersed domains; mutual encapsulation
	will be needed (i.e., both "xxx.ba.org" and "xxx.org.ba").

In summary, the area code proposal should really be considered as
an "addressing" method, a refinement of which could be based (in the US)
on ZIP+4. Note that telephone and Telenet numbers are "addresses", like
ZIP codes; they tell you "where", not "who" or "what". Area codes or ZIP
codes MAY be useful as addresses, but not as domains. Current UUCP host
names are really "routes", but could evolve to either "addresses" or
"names within domains".

Rob Warnock

UUCP:	{sri-unix,amd70,hpda,harpo,ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD:	(415)595-8444
USPS:	Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphins Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065

References (somewhat sketchy):

1. The John Shoch (Xerox) paper "Names, Addresses, and Routes" and the
   Jerry Saltzer (MIT) follow-on commentary paper (with a similar name)
   supply an excellent vocabulary and view of the issues.

2. The Oppen and Dalal (Xerox) paper on "Clearinghouse" (Tech Report OPD-T8103)
   gives a good introduction to functions needed in in a name server, as well
   as an overall rationale on domains.