mjl@ritcv.UUCP (Mike Lutz) (10/05/85)
In article <2841@sun.uucp> guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris) writes: > >I suspect the best solution is to set up the domain but not to assume that >every UUCP site will join it. Permit UUCP mail to work as it always has, >but also permit sites to join the new domain and get whatever benefits it >offers if they're willing to pay whatever costs it requires (installing new >mailers, accepting the authority of the administrator of the subdomain that >they join, whatever). If nothing else, this should mean that pro-domainists >and anti-domainists won't feel obliged to prove their opponents completely >wrong before the experiment is started. > > Guy Harris Finally, some sanity in this discussion. Up to now we've had two monologues pretending to be a dialogue: 1. Jordan and company tell us how wonderful domains will be (reminds me of an IBM salesman joke), but skirting the persistent and pernicious "authority" problem. 2. Peter and his allies tell us that domains would be wonderful but are impossible given the anarchic organization and chaotic growth of "UUCPnet." Meanwhile, part time mail system administrators like me, just trying to keep things reasonably in order, are excoriated by both sides because our systems are too smart, too dumb, too archaic, too futuristic, or whatever. Guy's proposal is the first one I've seen which has any promise of working. If domains are accepted by the community, and appropriate mailer s/w is cheap (= free?), sites will join .UUMAIL or whatever out of self-interest. If domains die, for political, economic, or technological reasons, we still have '!' syntax to fall back on. Finally, let's remember what this all about: exchange of electronic messages in a reasonable manner. Believe it or not, there are lots of users out there who *only* want to do that. Handing them the net.mail archives when they are having problems with some arcane address (domain-arcane or bang-arcane) is not a reasonable response. -- Mike Lutz Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY UUCP: {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!mjl CSNET: mjl%rit@csnet-relay.ARPA
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (10/09/85)
> Guy's proposal is the first one I've seen which has any promise of > working. I find this statement somewhat annoying, given the fact that the position which I had maintained for nearly a month when I was arguing for a method of graceful conversion to the support of domains was exactly the same one Guy Harris had proposed, except that I spelled out in detail how to do it. You may recall that my arguments against @-precedence were specifically because it *required*, rather than *allowed*, people to adopt the RFC822-syntax and the use of the !-syntax domain notation. One of the reasons for all the confusion and disagreement is that, when presented with a "let's do something about this" proposal, everyone says "great idea," but when they are presented with proposals for the details of the implementation, everyone throws up their hands and says, "too complicated! too confusing! look at this counterexample! it won't work!" -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: Ofc: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer Home: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jerpc!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642