From: demco@cs.ubc.ca (John Demco)
Newsgroups: can.domain
Subject: Re: Q: organizational subdomains?
Date: 5 Jan 1993 21:51:28 -0800
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Distribution: can
NNTP-Posting-Host: grolsch.cs.ubc.ca

In article <1993Jan5.053622.10995@julian.uwo.ca>
morton@gaul.csd.uwo.ca (Brent Morton) writes:
>I've wondered for some time why Canada chose not to adopt the organizational
>subdomain system in use in countries such as the UK, Australia, Taiwan,
>New Zealand, South Africa, Austria, and even, as a domain, in the US. By this
>I mean 'ac.uk', 'edu.tw', 'ac.za', 'co.uk', 'gen.nz', etc. 

Brent, this is a good question and probably one that should go into a
FAQ list.  It's something we discussed at great length back in 1987,
and the topic comes up periodically.

During the continuing work on the structure of the domain, two
questions I have tried to keep in mind are:
- What are the effects on the users?
- What are the effects on the manageability of the domain?

By users I'm referring both to those with a technical background in
networking--many of whom are knowledgeable about "how it's done"
elsewhere in the Internet--and to those from other backgrounds who
simply want to (or need to, or are being forced to, or will in the
future, or even unknowingly) use services which the network can
deliver.

By manageability I'm referring to such things as administering the
top-level domain well, being able to delegate authority to
well-defined sub-authorities when appropriate, handling registration
requests equitably and promptly, and ensuring that the entire
structure can be maintained reasonably efficiently using the current
technology (presently the DNS).

There is no question that functional subdomains can be used: they are
used in other countries.  But to me they have some drawbacks, some of
which I'll list here in no particular order:

- Functional subdomains don't seem particularly useful to the user.

- 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.

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

- 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?

- 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.)

- 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.

- 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.

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

My guess as to how functional subdomains came into use in some
countries is that the network administrators in charge of the domains
looked at .COM, .EDU, .GOV, and so on and decided to copy the
decomposition, one level down.

Cheers,
John Demco, CA Domain Registrar    E-mail: demco@cs.ubc.ca
Department of Computer Science        Tel: +1 (604) 822 6724
University of British Columbia        Fax: +1 (604) 822 5485
Vancouver, BC, Canada  V6T 1Z2
Newsgroups: can.usrgroup