Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 20:14:28 +0100 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> Cc: Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de>, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Top-level domains Message-ID: <a05101001b843f151729c@[10.0.1.39]> In-Reply-To: <3C1E3281.5A0E3CA1@mindspring.com> References: <20011216044542.Y86103-100000@turtle.looksharp.net> <3C1DBE25.B03DC40@mindspring.com> <9vkjth$2sc2$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de> <3C1DEF39.DE92F450@mindspring.com> <9vl05j$f6n$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de> <3C1E17CB.5BD44972@mindspring.com> <a05101000b843cd704274@[10.0.1.22]> <3C1E3281.5A0E3CA1@mindspring.com>
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At 9:59 AM -0800 on 2001/12/17, Terry Lambert wrote: > Talking to people who were actually there would be a good idea. Remember -- we want people who were there in the early to mid 1980's, back when the DNS was first invented and implemented. > Here are some good historical references to X.400 mail, OSI, and > Europe: > > http://www.isi.salford.ac.uk/staff/dwc/Version.Web/Chapter.1/Chapter1.htm > (1994 D. Chadwick) > > http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1160.txt > (1990 Vinton Cerf) I haven't read all these documents yet, but all they show is that X.400 and X.500 was in limited use in the 1990's. Yet RFC 920 "Domain Requirements" (October 1984, superceded by RFCs 1034 and 1034 in November of 1987) laid out the first recognized domain names, as they had originally been conceived in RFC 881 (November of 1983). So, you're about five years late here. > http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/setup/unix/part1/ > (1991-1998 Chris Lewis) Absolutely nothing of interest here. At least, not to this discussion. Please keep in mind that I was also a reviewer of _sendmail_, 2nd edition, and that I've been using Internet e-mail (albeit primarily through UUCP, until later when we joined the full ARPAnet via a 56k line) since I started school in the fall of 1984 at the University of Oklahoma, and that it was in the spring of 1984 that Mike O'Dell left OU to help form what became Uunet. Also note that I was materially involved in the X.400/X.500 implementation projects for the Defense Information Systems Agency in the early 90's, and that we were also responsible for handling X.400/X.500 implementations for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and all their gateways to the various X.400/X.500 systems run by the Services. > Here are some other interesting historical references: > > http://www.fokus.gmd.de/step/internet/intro2.pdf > http://standards.edna.edu.au/reports/scopeattb.pdf > http://www.w3.org/People/howcome/p/telektronikk-4-93/Dybvik_P_E.html > http://www.house.gov/science/landweber_9-10.html > http://www.wia.org/ISOC/itu_mission.htm > http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/imr/imr9306.txt > http://www.ifi.uio.no/~oleha/Publications/bok.b.html > http://www.traxon.de/brochures/icm_5.1_dec00.pdf > http://www.infosociety.gr/infosoc/policies/tele/docs/testa.pdf I'll take a look at these, but if they're not dated in at least the mid 1980's, then they are too recent to be relevant to the discussion in question. > Ah... here is a canonical reference to the use of X.400 and OSI, > in European email systems: > > http://www.hypermail.org/rfcs/rfc1506.html > (1993 J. Houttuin, Reseaux Associes pour la Recherche Europeenne Secretariat) Ye Ghods. Now we're talking the mid 1990's -- that's *WAY* too late. We need data from roughly the same time that RFCs 881 & 920 were published, not ones as new as these. > Obviously, you should know how to use search engines, too, if > you need more references. Yeah, I also note that a lot of the data we're going to want for this discussion will not be available online -- most people don't keep public archives of mailing lists or USENET newsgroups that are fifteen or twenty years old. > As an incredibly amusing aside, this historical document talks > about X.400 in a really derogatory fashion (it shows the US/Europe > battle lines being drawn, but it also has a cute section: > > >http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/back.issues/1992.volume.12/vol12.iss801-850 > > "Senator Albert Gore from Tennesee has repeatedly sponsored > legislation that will eventually turn the major research > networks sponsored by the U.S. government into a "National > Data Highway System". I expect that this will be a > cornerstone in a Clinton/Gore industrial policy program. > Once the "acceptable use policy" restrictions are lifted > from the NREN backbone, RFC822 mail will truly be the > lingua franca of public and private electronic mail systems > from FIDOnet to UUCP mail." Yeah, and I know of DOD project managers that were saying equally derogatory things about X.400/X.500 a lot earlier than this. Indeed, I believe that I am personally acquainted with the project officer that ended up being a key player in putting the final nails in the OSI/GOSIP coffin. I haven't heard from him in many years, but he had some pretty wild stories to tell about some of the meetings that he'd been at. > Unfortunately, there aren't a hell of a lot of records from 1988 > and 1989, which is when I was tasked with implementing serial > communications software for use in accessing X.400 email systems, > and network terminal GOSIP support for the U.S. OSI initiative > utilizing Intel "OpenNet" protocol stacks on Prime, Unisys, SCO, > and other systems (anyone else remember NVT or FTAM?). Yup, I remember FTAM. That's just one of many X.400/X.500/OSI memories that I really don't ever want to dredge up again. -- Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be> H4sICIFgXzsCA2RtYS1zaWcAPVHLbsMwDDvXX0H0kkvbfxiwVw8FCmzAzqqj1F4dy7CdBfn7 Kc6wmyGRFEnvvxiWQoCvqI7RSWTcfGXQNqCUAnfIU+AT8OZ/GCNjRVlH0bKpguJkxiITZqes MxwpSucyDJzXxQEUe/ihgXqJXUXwD9ajB6NHonLmNrUSK9nacHQnH097szO74xFXqtlbT3il wMsBz5cnfCR5cEmci0Rj9u/jqBbPeES1I4PeFBXPUIT1XDSOuutFXylzrQvGyboWstCoQZyP dxX4dLx0eauFe1x9puhoi0Ao1omEJo+BZ6XLVNaVpWiKekxN0VK2VMpmAy+Bk7ZV4SO+p1L/ uErNRS/qH2iFU+iNOtbcmVt9N16lfF7tLv9FXNj8AiyNcOi1AQAA To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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