From: timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: Re: Reserving a sitename under .ca with a "blanket application"
Organization: TDK Consulting Services
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 03:39:21 GMT

In article <1993Jan3.170612.13057@robohack.UUCP> woods@robohack.UUCP (Greg A. Woods) writes:
>In article <1993Jan2.213523.28582@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca> timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn) writes:
>> What I would like to see would be a way to reserve a standard 
>> organization name for all geographic sites under .ca. Then, when 
>
>I think Tim's misleading or confusing us(/me?) a wee bit by opening
>his discussion in this way, then concluding with:
>
>> While I like the idea of registering the sites under ".ca" in order to get 
>> a consistent geo-political naming convention, the possibility of having to 
>> submit an application for each and every site makes me lean more in favor 
>> of going under ".org", barring an amendable "blanket application" process 
>> which would greatly facilitate the assignment of domains for trans-canada 
>> and international organizations.
>
>I am, after all the years since the formation of the CA domain, still
>at a great loss to understand why any entity not specifically tied to a
>given geographical area would even consider registering in a
>geographical domain!

Because the various sites of the entity in question *are* tied to a 
geographical domain. There is one or more offices in each of the 
provinces, so for them to register under org.prov.ca would make the 
most sense since those offices are there to service that particular 
province. Any sites servicing smaller geographical areas could be 
registered under org.munic.prov.ca.  The head office could be org.ca.

>Such domains seem to make some degree of sense for government agencies
>(including educational institutions, etc.).
>However, for all the rest of us, being tied to geographical domain
>seems to be a wee bit odd.  On the other hand, perhaps those of you
>who've never been transplanted between cities, or even provinces,
>might not have a problem with this.  For me however, I'd be loath to
>register a "personal" domain name in a geographical sub-domain, never
>mind what I think of registering a corporate entity as such (even one
>incorporated in a specific province!).

Were this a normal corporate, commercial entity, I'd agree with you. 
But it's not, and as such what would suit it best may not always
match up with what would make the most sense for a corporation which 
could reshuffle and move around at will, or which has a number of large
departments that should have their own domain.

This organization is different in that the main national body is 
considerably smaller than the semi-autonomous bodies it services,
and as such doesn't have near the specialization that a commercial 
enterprise would have.

>Anyway, it seems to me that at least half of the folks participating
>in this discussion wouldn't have to bother if they registered in one
>of the non-geographical sub-domains (i.e. ".org", or ".com")!

.com is out of the question for this entity. They're not commerical. ;-)
.org, while possible, has problems with it that I've outlined in another 
post.

>Finally, I've a couple of comments on specific items in Tim's post:
>First, I think that "blanket" applications are an answer to the wrong
>problem (see my discussion above!).

>Or, if you're smart enough to just register "orgname.org", then you
>can control your own sub-domain, and thus create any naming scheme
>underneath that makes sense for your organization:

>	department.division.orgname.org
>	site.orgname.org
>	site.city.orgname.org
>	city.orgname.org

Admittedly this is true, and this is a perfectly valid way of desginating 
individual sites. And if need be, if the client goes for it, this will most
likely be the chosen route barring the alternative I've outlined elsewhere.

>> 3) Having a domain under ".org" should make it easier to deal with all 
>>    admin, network connections, and forwarding at the central site 
>>    responsible for the ".orgname.org" domain.
>
>Having a non-geographical domain name also makes moving between
>geographical regions, or even expanding into new regions a non-issue!

So would reserving an orgname cross-Canada and having the right to 
install MX records where required in new areas as they come up without
having to go through the approval process. The only "issue" left in 
such a situation is deciding a name for munic.prov.ca when munic doesn't 
exist.

>From what I understand, it also means you can simply add new MX'ers in
>the new region to add new gateways to your domain, and additionally
>not having to have complex schemes to contain inter-sub-domain mail on
>private links.

Since it's doubtful this organization will ever be more than a 
collection of uucp sites spread across Canada and the rest of 
the world, this is a non-issue.

>> 5) Using the ".org" would result in having to use a naming convention which 
>>    is the exact opposite of the convention used under the ".ca" naming 
>>    convention. Such "counter-to-convention" naming practices should be 
>>    avoided if at all possible.
>
>I'd also like to point out that the *original* domain names (eg.
>".mil", ".edu", ".net", ".gov", etc.) seemed to lend themselves to an
>exactly "counter-to-non-email-convention" scheme (eg.
>"site.dept.univ.edu"), and that such a logical naming scheme so
>confused my British cousins that they went and reversed it right off!

:-)

>Now we Canuck's are doing the same thing, but without a national
>mandate to be one way or another!

Then we should make up our minds. May registering *anything* other than 
provinces under .ca  should be dis-allowed and all new sites should either 
go under prov.ca, or to go to the appropriate .(.com, .edu, .mil, .gov, 
etc.) domain and follow the naming convention (or lack thereof) they have, 
or allow them to reserve a name across Canada, and make them register under 
.prov.ca, or .munic.prov.ca. 

>I'd suggest that anyone who has trouble with policies in any/all of the
>existing domains should campaign for the formation of a new top-level
>domain such as ".pri" (or ".priv"), rather than try to inflict change
>in an existing domain which may have been set up for quite specific
>purposes.

I'm curious what exactly the policy is for administration of the .ca
domain. I'm looking forward to the Intro file.


>						Greg A. Woods
>woods@robohack.UUCP, woods@Elegant.COM  VE3TCP	UniForum Canada & ECI
>+1 416 443-1734 [home] +1 416 362-XRSA [work]	Toronto, Ontario; CANADA

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