sl@van-bc.UUCP (01/01/70)
In article <8708240437.AA05616@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> rayan@ai.toronto.edu (Rayan Zachariassen) writes: >In article <1262@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes: ># Other than that the UUCP Zone should be able to make it's own decisions on ># the structure of it's part of the .ca namespace (as long as it does not ># choose 2nd level names which collide with names already allocated in other ># Canadian zones). > >There are at least two big problems with this: > >1. Consistency. In an anarchy of that kind, there will be no guidelines > whatsoever for guessing an address. Once again you're imputing too much into a domain name. They are simply an identifier which enables people to send mail to you -- if they have it. Guessing an address is the domain (pun intended) of a Directory Service. You make a request giving as much information about an individual (name, sex, nick name, job description, previous address, employer, etc) and it spits out a list of domain names plus qualifing information about each, allowing you to either make a subsequent request giving more information, or identify the individual you wish to talk to. Heirarchical domain names are no more than a method of dividing a large name space up. Think of what your average unix system would be like to use if it had a flat file system. But does the fact that a file lives in /usr/lib instead of /lib have a great deal of signifigance (other than space availability on the underling disk partions, and the amount of use the system administrator thinks the file might get). > >2. There are a small but very important set of organizations that live > on more than one network. These are mostly the universities and R&D So what, they pick whatever one they want to deal with, and ask for a domain name. Once you have a domain name your mail is routed to you by whatever route specified by whatever name server the sender is using. This is totally independant of the domain name. We already are proving that. With the current Internet and uucp networks, I can send mail to user@xyz.com without knowing anything about what network that xyz is on. It could be arpa or uucp. People in the US on Arpanet can currently send me mail at sl@van-bc.uucp. They don't know that I'm in Canada. I could get a US domain name -- sl@van-bc.org -- and arrange to have my mail forwarded from UUNET to me via X.400 EAN links. Again the users on Arpanet wouldn't know the difference. The moral is I *already* have a good set of domain choices. I don't have to be in .ca. Of course being the flag waving patriotic citizen that I am, I would *like* to be in .ca. > organizations. If they are in N Zones, each with a different policy, > there'll be chaos. Why? Please elaborate. >Also, there may be a misunderstanding of what a "Zone" is in the context >of "The UUCP Zone". This is separate from the technical concept of a Zone >(which delimits the boundaries of delegated authority of a domain master). >The UUCP Zone doesn't set policy; it is an interface to the NIC so that They don't need much of a policy. The only requirement (that I'm aware of) is that you choose a unique identifier within the top level domain that you qualify for (ie. .edu/.com/.gov... ). >Of the three ways of dividing up .CA, there is no fundamental incompatibility >between 'geographical' and 'functional' or 'geographical' and 'organizational'. >However, 'functional' and 'organizational' cannot coexist, partially because >they overlap to a certain extent. Since geographical domains are so wonderfully >compatible with the alternatives, such domains will probably spring up at >some point (after all, there are many many organizations which stay put; >a condominium for example -- the one I'm in uses a computer for various >things - I wonder when they'll get on the net...). But do I really want my mail to go to my condominium for the next 25 years. I'll put it another way. If you where told that you could choose a domain identifier for your personal use, but that once you have choosen it you must use it for the next 25 years. Would you really want one that was based on your current geographical address. I personally can't come up with any suitable scheme that: a. keeps everyone happy b. will last a long time c. will suffice with exponential growth Other than, if you want a name, and it isn't in use (or seem likely to be used, i.e. large companies, cities, etc) then use that. This seems to work fairly well in the US. Why won't it work here. The argument that it works there because they use functional top level domains is not valid. Any of their top level domains has the potential for being larger than .CA. -- {ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision,uunet}!van-bc!Stuart.Lynne Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
michael@orcisi.UUCP (01/01/70)
I haven't been following this very closely but CA is known (almost) the
world over as the abbreviation for California. It is part of a widely
accepted set of abbreviations for both the provinces and states. I even
suspect this set might even have some offical status.
Please choose something else.
Second, if there develops a need to reach some sort of majority consensus,
plse send mail to each site administrator. I, for one, only have time to
follow this item on a sporadic basis.
p.s. There must be some parallels between what is being discussed here and
similar issues with respect to telephone and postal code and address
naming schemes.
Michael Herman
Optical Recording Corporation
141 John Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 2E4
UUCP: { cbosgd!utcs ihnp4!utzoo seismo!mnetor }!syntron!orcisi!michael
ALSO: mwherman@watcgl.waterloo.edusl@van-bc.UUCP (08/24/87)
In article <53@ncc.UUCP> lyndon@ncc.UUCP (Lyndon Nerenberg) writes: >In article <1251@van-bc.UUCP>, sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes: >> In article <298@ncrcan.UUCP> brian@ncrcan.UUCP () writes: >> > >> >I prefer .CAN as a top level domain myself. The domain .CA looks *too* >> >much like California. Why was a two letter top level chosen anyways... all >> >the major ones (ie .COM, .GOV, .EDU) are three letters now? > >I *think* I *might* agree, but if we all start to use .CA it will become >second nature in short order (I DO like .CAN, but I ALSO agree with adopting >international standards just to maintain consistency [RS-232? tee hee!]) > >> This is mainly due to the influence of X.400 and the efforts to follow the >> international standards. "CA" is the officially sanctioned abbreviation for >> Canada. (Of course it is also the officially sanctioned -- by US Post Office >> -- abbreviation for California.) > >TRUE! But ONLY in the U.S.A. The ISO standard *should* (does?) have >the ultimate say here. > >> While we are on the topic it might be noted that the use of Organizational >> 2nd level domain names is also due to X.400 related standards. Mainly in the >> directory service area. It allows the domain names that we choose to slide >> fairly easily into a directory server implemented to CCITT standards. > >NO! 2'nd level domain space is controlled ONLY by the 1st level domain... >(Whatever that organization may be) CCITT or RFCxxx be damned! Your absolutely right. What the EAN people are trying to do is to impose a structure on the second level name space which will map easily into the X.DS implementations. They don't want to have to start over again when they implement the Directory Service. From the point of view of responsible administration this is probably a good idea. IFF we believe that X.DS (and X.400 etc) will play a large role in future mail systems in Canada. My personal opinion is that I would prefer to stay in line with any American standards (RFC's, Arpa, Internet) than to align with the European standards (X.??). When most of my mail needs are to talk to people who may not have domain names which are supported by X.DS then there isn't a whole lot of benefit in my supporting it. >Again, this is a valid statement. The question at hand is "Who, within >the Canadian 'Internet' community is going to act as the Official >representative to SRI, or whoever???" > >CDNNet no doubt has some valid concerns, as may many other "networks" >(such as APSSNet) may have. I am interested in seeing our little >"network" have some type of representation in the development of >.CA, as I am sure people in BITNET and other networks are also. >I don't want to pick on a certain organizaation, but it seems that >the CDNNet reps are attacking (not a good word?) SRI and others >as if they are the de facto body speaking on behalf of >all of us in Canada. I do not think this is the case. I certainly >do not think this SHOULD be the case. I my personal opinion is that we should start a Canadian UUCP Zone registry. It would agree to cooperate with the Canadian Domain Registry on three areas: - we will share ".ca" - we will co-operate with them to ensure that names allocated in the UUCP .ca zone are unique and unambigous - we will provide routing information and gateway information to other Canadian Zones (EAN,NETNORTH) and other top level domains (i.e. NIC) Specifically it will ensure that before anyone uses a name in the 2nd level that it is reserved with the Canadian Domain Registry to avoid collisions. It will make arrangements via the US UUCP Zone to register Canadian uucp sites with the NIC to ensure forwarding from US sites is done directly via uucp connections (e.g. UUNET) instead of through other zones connections (e.g. CDNet). It will make arrangements with other Canadain Zones to ensure that mail routed to Canadain sites is done (hopefully) without having to hop over the border. Other than that the UUCP Zone should be able to make it's own decisions on the structure of it's part of the .ca namespace (as long as it does not choose 2nd level names which collide with names already allocated in other Canadian zones). Also the Canadian UUCP Zone should be able to be setup very quickly, and independantly from the other Zones. As long as a responsible organization is setup to administer the Canadian Zone the other Canadian Zones should have no problems with this. The fact that they can't get their act together should not prevent us from doing so! Also remember that the people in the UUCP community have as much right to manage their part of the .ca namespace as any other network. Up to now there has been a distinct lack of communication between the other network organizers and the UUCP community. They don't have any special rights or qualities that should allow them force a solution on us, that we don't want, or that we don't want to wait for. By setting up a Canadian UUCP Zone like this we can basically operate separately from the Canadian Domain Registry and develop the Zone the way that the uucp community needs it. Not the way that EAN/Netnorth/... needs/wants it. Any comments? If you must flame, at least make it constructive! P.S. If the EAN/Netnorth people cannot agree to split up the .ca namespace in a co-operative fashion then the only suggestion I can make is to split it by network: .uucp.ca .cdn.ca .netnorth.ca etc. Personally I think that this is abhorrent, but if thats the only way we can structure the namespace then so be it. -- {ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision,uunet}!van-bc!Stuart.Lynne Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
rayan@utegc.UUCP (08/24/87)
In article <1262@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes:
# Other than that the UUCP Zone should be able to make it's own decisions on
# the structure of it's part of the .ca namespace (as long as it does not
# choose 2nd level names which collide with names already allocated in other
# Canadian zones).
There are at least two big problems with this:
1. Consistency. In an anarchy of that kind, there will be no guidelines
whatsoever for guessing an address.
2. There are a small but very important set of organizations that live
on more than one network. These are mostly the universities and R&D
organizations. If they are in N Zones, each with a different policy,
there'll be chaos.
Also, there may be a misunderstanding of what a "Zone" is in the context
of "The UUCP Zone". This is separate from the technical concept of a Zone
(which delimits the boundaries of delegated authority of a domain master).
The UUCP Zone doesn't set policy; it is an interface to the NIC so that
they avoid getting swamped by zillions of unacceptable/not-up-to-par
applications, and so the applicants have a mechanism to do the grunge work
of checking and distributing the various data.
While I'm here...
Of the three ways of dividing up .CA, there is no fundamental incompatibility
between 'geographical' and 'functional' or 'geographical' and 'organizational'.
However, 'functional' and 'organizational' cannot coexist, partially because
they overlap to a certain extent. Since geographical domains are so wonderfully
compatible with the alternatives, such domains will probably spring up at
some point (after all, there are many many organizations which stay put;
a condominium for example -- the one I'm in uses a computer for various
things - I wonder when they'll get on the net...).
Anyway, the lines between functional and organizational domains are a bit
fuzzy due to the existence of meta-organizations, or associations/consortia
if you prefer. For example, a consulting engineering firm is an organizaton
of sorts (a company), but such firms have associations that look after
accreditation, lobbying, etc. So, if both the company and its overseeing
body are "on the net", in an organizational scheme they would both be
accomodated at the same subdomain level. In a functional scheme, the
trade organization would be 'higher' in the hierarchy simply as a way of
grouping the related companies associated with it. But even if the trade
organization gets a functionally motivated domain name, it is still an
organization. The same thing is likely to happen in many other situations.
When the engineering firm comes and wants a domain registered, the difference
between the approaches is then:
organizational: "You want to register? Certainly; just choose a name that
doesn't conflict with any present or likely future important domains
(such as city, province, major institution, etc.)."
functional: "You want to register? Certainly; how many are there of your
kind right now? If none, why don't you set up a new 2nd-level domain for
your type of entity, and run it until a few more join in. If there are others
like you, get a common entity to register a new 2nd-level domain and then
talk to them. Oh, the 2nd-level domain should bear some relation to what
you do, and shouldn't conflict with existing ones"
As a piece of mail that flew by me once, stated:
For example, suggest how one would name:
waterloo, the university
waterloo, the city government
waterloo, the location
waterloo, the regional government
(the city of waterloo is one of the cities in this region)
Someone mentioned that there was a waterloo in quebec too...
Note that here geographical and organizational would clash if one wasn't
careful as to choice of names.
At the moment, it looks like that under the organization.CA scheme,
uwaterloo.ca or something similar will be required to distinguish the
university from these other things. Probably city-waterloo.ca etc.
will follow. Isn't that a functional division under a different name
(and worse implementation)? Just waterloo.ca is too ambiguous.
It has also been suggested that there be parallel geographical
and functional hierarchies, for example:
user@dept.london.college.ca
user@dept.lc.london.on.ca
Some ideas for pondering...
rayan
--
Rayan Zachariassen
AI group, University of Torontolamy@utegc.UUCP (08/24/87)
In article <1262@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes: >If the EAN/Netnorth people cannot agree to split up the .ca namespace in a >co-operative fashion then the only suggestion I can make is to split it by >network: > > .uucp.ca > .cdn.ca > .netnorth.ca > >Personally I think that this is abhorrent, but if thats the only way we can >structure the namespace then so be it. This is not only abhorrent, it is in direct contradiction with the stated goals of domains! Where would you put toronto.edu (which is part of all 3, in addition to CSNet)? The same holds for park names if there is any risk that a site would leave one such co-op for another, or if the co-op failed. The one advantage geographical domains have is that cities and provinces don't move very often... Well chosen functional domains are likely to last the expected 25 years before the next great shakedown (my guess). Jean-Francois Lamy lamy@ai.toronto.edu (CSnet,UUCP,Bitnet) AI Group, Dept of Computer Science lamy@ai.toronto.cdn (EAN X.400) University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 {seismo,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!lamy