[net.mail.headers] DOMAINS and lower case addressing

RMXJITRY%CORNELLA.BITNET@ucb-vax.ARPA (02/13/85)

I sincerely hope that the new DOMAIN scheme will not
support lower case letters.  THe only immediate problem with that
is that would (probably) interfere greatly with sending mail on usenet.

-- Gligor

RMXJITRY%CORNELLA@WISCVM.ARPA

guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (02/14/85)

> I sincerely hope that the new DOMAIN scheme will not
> support lower case letters.

From RFC 819, "The Domain Naming Convention for Internet User Applications":

	The simple names that make up a domain may contain both upper
	and lower case letters (as well as digits and hyphen), but these
	names are not case sensitive.

I hope this is what you want.  If you want all names to be upper-case only,
sorry, my OS thinks two cases are neat and that lower-case is a good default,
and I refuse to be forced to use my SHIFT LOCK key when composing addresses.
The case-insensitivity of names makes it possible to send mail even on
old systems that don't support lower case; this is sufficient.

> THe only immediate problem with that is that would (probably) interfere
> greatly with sending mail on usenet.

If the UUCP net becomes a domain, the mail transport protocol will have to be
insensitive to the case of names.  If this fouls up some sites, they'll have
to change or not be members of the domain.

Non-members could send mail to the Internet (or whatever the mail net will
be called that would include the Internet and the UUCP net - most UUCP sites
are not on the Internet); if they sent to

	foo!bar!bletch!gateway!INuser@INdomain

(or whatever the syntax would parse as "send to "foo", then to "bar",
then to "bletch", then to "gateway", then have "gateway" send to
"INuser@INdomain"), the case might have to be correct for the UUCP hops
but the Internet host isn't allowed to care if it's going to "inuser@indomain"
or "INuser@INdomain" or "INUSER@INDOMAIN".

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy

dave@uwvax.UUCP (Dave Cohrs) (02/14/85)

> I sincerely hope that the new DOMAIN scheme will not
> support lower case letters.  THe only immediate problem with that
> is that would (probably) interfere greatly with sending mail on usenet.

i sincerely hope that the new domain scheme will not support
flaming upper case.  it hurts my eyes.
-- 
dave cohrs
...!{allegra,harvard,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!dave
dave@wisc-rsch.arpa

    (bug?  what bug?  that's a feature!)

wcwells%ucbopal.CC@ucb-vax.ARPA (William C. Wells) (02/21/85)

Some Unix systems with uucp links are case sensitive.

Unix sendmail converts all addresses to one case when comparing
domain-name and userid information. It should leave the case the way in
was sent in the header when it forwards a message.

We recently had a problem on a Unix system here because a userid
(login name) had been created that contained upper and lower case
letters. The result was that the user could not receive mail because
sendmail was looking for a lower-case only login name.  Thus mail
to "UsEr" would be forwarded to "user" (if "user" existed) or generate
an unknown user error. So case is also an issue with the local part
of the address on some systems.

Bill Wells
wcwells@Berkeley.ARPA