At 09:34 PM 3/30/99 -0800, William X. Walsh wrote:
>Perhaps you could tell us what more is needed to get "EVERYTHING right," as I
>am quite interested in knowing exactly what you mean.
Actually, Richard and I have spoken about this quite some time ago. I have
also mentioned it to Chris Ambler. A part of "everything right" is
providing a gateway mechanism for those systems that can not resolve the
TLD, yet have mail to deliver. It is one of a few remaining technical
barriers to non-rooted TLDs. There is an answer in the implementation of a
few "smart relay" hubs, that act as gateways. The IEEE ran such a hub for
the FTN TLD (although not called as such at the time) through the
fidonet.org system, which is a map to the FTN TLD with internal addresses
like <1:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. There are still thousands of FidoNet BBS's
around and they are the FTN. There are at least two different ways already
proven to resolve the problem. I might remind the alt-TLD detractors that
there is also the UUCP universe, which is still supported. It is also,
effectively, in alt-TLD space. Both of these date back to the mid-80's.
Yes, formally they were called something else, I refuse to quibble, you all
know what I mean.
The point is that the technology is there, and has been there, for over ten
years. el has a good point that mail delivery should be paramount. However,
to refuse to acknowledge the "other" space's existence is pure elitist
snobbery, IMHO. Although, el has the god-given right to be a snob and I
will defend his right to be an elitist as well, if he wants to be one.
Why does a domain *have* to be in the roots to get recognized and/or
routed? That is a question that has also been asked for over ten years. I
have not yet heard a defensible answer, in ten years. Just a load of dogma,
every time it is asked. It appears that the main purpose of the
root-servers control is to keep the "riff-raff" out and nothing more.
The InterNet is supposed to be a network of networks. It is allowed, in the
original specs, that disparate addressing mechanisms be used and the DNS
was *supposed* to alleviate the problems with cross-mapping addresses. (Did
you know that Lucent *still* uses bang-path addressing in their mail
systems?) In this crowd, at any rate, this intent has been deeply
subverted, from day-one. Some of you, whom have been around long enough to
know better, have the memory of Alzheimer's patients. Maybe it is more
accurate to say that you wished that the rest of us did?
The FidoNet SysOp lives by one credo "the mail must get through". I think
we need to work on that one a bit. As I say, el has a point. But,
preventing the issuance or use of alt-TLDs isn't the answer. Building
systems that would allow them to be used, even by snobs, is.
___________________________________________________
Roeland M.J. Meyer -
e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Internet phone: hawk.lvrmr.mhsc.com
Personal web pages: http://staff.mhsc.com/~rmeyer
Company web-site: http://www.mhsc.com
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