From: timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: Re: Q: organizational subdomains?
Organization: TDK Consulting Services
Distribution: can
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 22:16:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.070250.9631@robohack.UUCP> woods@robohack.UUCP (Greg A. Woods) writes:
>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.  

Mostly because that's the only standard way of getting a standard 
naming convention across all possible sites in Canada. If one goes 
by functional naming schemes, then there is *no* way you can generate 
a standard naming scheme which 1) is simple, and 2) covers all 
possibilities. 

If one assumes a naming resolution mechanism for names between 
different entities in the same geographical area (Acme Skates 
vs Acme Computers) geographical naming is easier to generate 
names for, and to remember. Want to send mail to the local Acme
computer office? Send mail to acme.waterloo.on.ca. Looking for 
their provincial office? Then it's acme.on.ca. National head 
office? Call acme.ca!


>Perhaps it is because it might be the
>only accessible alternative.  As is evident from the bickering, 

With certain irrational name-calling on an unnamed party, I thought 
it was a sprited debate!

>the
>exact specification of geo/political subdomain names seems even more
>controversial than arbitrary functional classification has been.

Probably because there's so many ways of coming up with such 
designations, and proposals have been more prolific to match.

>(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.

And I'll poke back. John can do what he wills. :-)

>In <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.

Granted, which is why it's so critical to establish a rational 
standard *now*, before we're saddled with an unweildy system 
which has to be scrapped later on with great pain and duress 
because it just didn't work.

>> - 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.

As far as geographical domains being worse than functional names, 
there's no reason if a person or company moves to amend their current
registration and MX information, change their old MX record to point 
to their new domain location, and some time later (4-6 months) delete
the old MX/domain information as being out-of-date.

>> - 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?

Which will result in another ad-hoc collection of chaos which has 
even less correlation to reality, and even harder to maintain and 
administer.  At least with a geographical naming convention we have 
*something* standard across all organizational entities that can 
be universally applied. 

>> - 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% :-)]

No need for that. If local network service providers spring up and 
capture a reasonably sized portion of the network, then they can take 
over admin'ing that part of the domain space. How are you going to 
admin something based on functionality? How much would you like to bet 
on two competing companies agreeing to allow a competitor to maintain
*their* MX and forwarding information? I doubt it'd happen, particularly
in the case of arch-rival companies.

>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.  

What about uucp sites that use address munging to fake it? There
isn't necessarily a DNS  active, nor do is there really a need to 
have UUNET or some other service provider "register" these sites.

>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.

Which would be agood thing.

>> - 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.  

Or by geographical area? .ca.com?

>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"????????

Are you arguing against functional domain names? This is the point I've 
been trying to make all along -- if people want to have a functional naming
system then they should use domain spaces which already lend themselves
nicely to exactly that instead of taking an already-geographic naming
scheme and mix it up with functional-naming conventions.

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

Good question.

>> - 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??????

Whether it's arbitrary or not is immaterial IMO. What counts is 

1) how simple the name-generating rule is,
2) how easy it is generates suitable domain names,
3) whether the generated name is has an easy to remember mnemonic,
4) if the rule can be readily applied across all possible applicants.

>> - 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've responded to the major problem with this earlier.

>However, I don't see any advantage for commercial or "private"
>entities to register geo/political subdomain names, esp. 

Because it makes sense for private individuals? It's easier for private 
sites to:

1) make a sitename when they only have to contend with namespace in 
   their geographic area, and 
2) keep that sitename if they moved. (ie, tkuehn.waterloo.on.ca would 
   change to tkuehn.toro.on.ca if I moved from Waterloo to Toronto.)

than for them to determine which functional subdomain they should be 
under even before getting registered. 

>when suitable, widely used, top-level functional subdomains are there.

If suitable top-level functional subdomains already exist, then why 
functionalize an already geographically-based .ca? That way leads to 
duplication of services (and problems!) with a system that is already 
running elsewhere.

>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.  

(this isn't germain to can.domain, but I'll take a pot-shot anyway)
Wouldn't one run into the same problems there (uniquely identifying an 
individual on one of a wide-array of systems) that we're dealing with 
here?

>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.  

It'd make a squat to you if you had to figure out what you had to 
call yourself on registration.

Also, you may be able to one day mail "postmaster@on.ca" as more 
local-area service providers appear. Also, having an agreed-on 
subdomain scheme makes the next step (creating a directory service) 
that much easier since the namespace that has to be searched for a 
given person is that much smaller.

>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.

Knowing that person's under a registered subdomain at least narrows 
the search down to a more reasonable scope as opposed to the current 
situation.

Maybe it'd be a good idea to have a voluntary place people could 
register their name and location under different domains and which 
could be grepped by mailing a name to registrar@domain.name.ca and
getting the results mailed back.

However, I do not think such things are germain to can.domain, 
and further discussion should be forwarded to some other group.

>						Greg A. Woods

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