From: woods@robohack.UUCP (Greg A. Woods)
Subject: Re: Q: organizational subdomains?
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc.
Summary: yes, please!
Distribution: can
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 07:02:50 GMT

Several folks have previously given blanket statements that they
"don't like organisational, or functional subdomain names", but 'til
now none have given a list of reasons.

For some reason I still haven't managed to fathom, everyone seems to
prefer geo/political subdomain names simply because they don't like
functional subdomain names.  Perhaps it is because it might be the
only accessible alternative.  As is evident from the bickering, the
exact specification of geo/political subdomain names seems even more
controversial than arbitrary functional classification has been.
(Though I admit no knowledge of what discussions may have ensued at
the initial declaration of the original top-level subdomains for the
Internet.)

SO, I'm going to poke at John's list, simply because its the only one
I've seen, and it's got enough holes (from my point of view!) to poke
at.

In article <1ids10INNpk0@grolsch.cs.ubc.ca> demco@cs.ubc.ca (John Demco) writes:
>
> - Functional subdomains don't seem particularly useful to the user.

That all depends on the user.  So far as I can tell, it's a simple
matter of perception.  Since regardless of the loss of relationship to
some arbitrary physical location, functional names no more abstract
than geo/political names.  We're still in the infancy of this
cyberspace, and I think a clear direction now may prevent years of
future confusion.

> - Some organizations can fit into more than one functional category.
> One may ask "So what?" to which one answer is that it can be
> confusing.

No more confusing, or perhaps even less confusing, than what now
happens when someone participates in either both a functional and
geo/politial subdomain, or in a geo/political subdomain to which they
in fact have no relationship.

> - Some organizations don't fit into any functional category,
> so some sort of catch-all may be needed.

So?  That should be easy enough to create.  In fact, hasn't ".PRI" (or
I'd prefer ".PRIV") been suggested many times already?

> - One reason to use a subdomain is so that authority can be delegated,
> thus decentralizing the administration, and possibly making it easier
> on the current technology.  But it's not clear to whom a functional
> subdomain should be delegated.  What body should have it in its power
> to register all educational institutions?

I'd bet that as the internet expands, delegation will fall much easier
on functional enities than it will on geo/politically centred
entities.  Do you want "Bob Rae" or "BM the PM" responsible for
administering *your* electronic subdomain too?  [0.05% :-)]

Perhaps the delegation of authority should happen at a much finer
scale starting right now!  My "blue sky" suggestion is this:  If your
real-world-adminitrative domain has more than "n" subdomains (where n
is greater than one?), then perhaps you should be required to provide
authoratative DNS for your subdomains, otherwise you must find a
service providor to do so.  I think this would mean the NIC's role
could be reduced to just resolving name conflicts and providing
secondary DNS, the latter which they could do almost without serious
administration commitments.

> - Supposing a functional subdomain is created, the same pressures
> which caused its creation may eventually prompt further decomposition
> within the subdomain, and it's not clear how to do that.  For example,
> suppose co.ca is created, and suppose it comes to be strained for
> some reason.  What does one do for subdomains under co.ca? (This is
> becoming an issue for the COM domain.)

Easy for .COM -- split it by service providor.  For .CO.CA, I don't
really know, though I guess the same answer could apply.....

That raises another major objection I have to this all:  Why the hell
should we double the confusion factor by having a ".CO.CA" which for
all intents and purposes serves the same function as ".COM"????????

Why not at least make the mnemonic comparison easy:  ".COM.CA"?

> - In other domains which use functional subdomains, there are
> typically a very small number of such subdomains.  The small fanout
> doesn't do much to alleviate the problems with the current technology.
> More subdomains could be used but they would quickly become arbitrary.

Isn't that what naming's all about anyway -- giving some token
identifier to an arbitrary entity??????

> - The CA domain already uses a hierarchy based on political geography.
> I agree with Anne and others that mixing in another hierarchy may not
> be useful.

I've no objection to the continued use of geo/political subdomain
names, but only for geo/political entities, such as municipal
governments, courts, and other "institutions" funded, supporting and
centred in geo/political regions, etc.

I say this because I think it's the only alternative to convincing the
current ".gov" and ".edu" folks to re-organize and re-name in a
slightly more "open" manner.

I will certainly agree that it's a bit presumptious of the Americans
to have not left room in some of the old top-level subdomains (such as
by putting their government agencies right under ".gov" instead of
something like ".usa.gov").

However, I don't see any advantage for commercial or "private"
entities to register geo/political subdomain names, esp. when
suitable, widely used, top-level functional subdomains are there.

> In general I agree with the assessment of functional subdomains made
> by one of the CA domain committee members: "They're artificial."

So, as we see in actual practice, are geo/political subdomain names.

Even Canada Post addresses are often arbitrary -- there are dozens of
companies accross this country which provide post boxes in "choice"
locations.  I once picked up my mail from "downtown Toronto" even
though I lived and worked in the far reaches of North York.

I'm going to guess that CA*net wanted to have their own top-level
domain (i.e. ".CA") because they were prejudiced against working with
the NIC within the traditional top-level subdomains for some reason.
Perhaps it was in hopes of avoiding the initial confusion when the NIC
moved into "private" hands (if I have my history sorted in the right
order!).  Perhaps it was fear of lack of co-operation with NIC
administration.  Perhaps it was simply nationalism.  Unfortunately I
only heard from one side of the debate when it occurred (and it was
the side I was rooting for, of course!).

Let's leave provincialism *only* where it belongs:  In the domain of
the government(s)!

Personally I'd like to see all of this energy channeled into the
design and creation of a decent Internet Directory Service that could
compete with X.500 in the real world.  Having an agreed upon subdomain
naming scheme does diddly-squat for me if I can't send mail to
"postmaster@on.ca" and hope to get a non-bounce reply.  On the
internet today I've a very slim chance of finding "Joe Blow" if all I
know is he's in Eastern Canada, even if I know for certian he's got a
mailbox within some registered subdomain.
-- 
						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
Newsgroups: can.domain