--On Thursday, 01 August, 2002 22:20 +0200 Bruce Campbell
<bruce.campbell@ripe.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, JFC (Jefsey) Morfin wrote:
>
>> I am sorry to repeat it (and I will try not to say it too
>> many times again): the terms of the ".arpa" sub global
>> namespace delegation are described in RFC 920 by Jon Postel
>> himself.
>
> Request For Comment number 920 is simply a now historic record
> of a policy statement between the IAB and the DARPA in 1984
> regarding establishment of Top Level Domains, and had a focus
> predominately on USA-based organisations.
>...
Two additions to Bruce's comments...
(i) While I was not involved in the discussions leading up to,
or surrounding, RFC 920, I do have some recollections from
earlier and subsequent periods. Given those recollections, and
what 920 actually says, I find it fairly difficult to believe
that any part of that RFC was motivated by a name-space-division
agreement between Jon and/or the ICCB/IAB and a collection of
operators of systems based on OSI or other protocols. Note
that the first real section of 920 ("The Purpose of Domains")
says:
The purpose and expected use of domains is to divide the
name management required of a central administration and
assign it to sub-administrations. There are no
geographical, topological, or technological constraints
on a domain. The hosts in a domain need not have common
hardware or software, nor even common protocols.
This doesn't sound to me like the sort of name space subdivision
that Jefsey indicates occurred. If such an agreement did exist
and 920 documented that agreement, it would be most unusual for
920 to avoid calling it out.
I hope that Joyce will comment on her recollections when she
considers that appropriate.
(ii) As a DNS name allocation policy document, RFC 920 was
effectively superceded by RFC 1591. I was involved in the
formulation and writing of 1591, as were several people who I
assume follow this list. I am certain that there were no
discussions during that process about any commitments to name
space constraints or divisions as the result of prior
international agreements.
john