[ih] Tell me about host names and 3com

[Brian E Carpenter]

On 18-Jan-24 12:02, John Gilmore via Internet-history wrote:
> Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> If I am an entrepreneur musing about writing a new mail system, both
>> clients and server, totally from scratch with no use of existing
>> libraries or such, is there any place where I can find the complete
>> set of specifications for what my new software has to do in order to
>> interoperate with the rest of Internet email?
> 
> In short, no.

It turns out to be a hard problem, which the IETF has been aware of
at some level for a couple of decades, but has never solved.

For a slice of history, please glance at:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-newtrk-repurposing-isd/
which the IESG failed to find consensus on. (Partly my
fault, because I was IETF/IESG Chair at the time, but the
conflicting opinions appeared to be irreconcilable.)
There's a worked example that covers a couple of corners
of the email problem as it was 20 years ago:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-newtrk-sample-isd/

> 
> The "Host Requirements" and "Gateway Requirements" RFCs from 1989 were
> originally intended to gather a lot of the miscellaneous changes into a
> small number of documents (including a bibliography of the basic specs
> like IP, TCP, and SMTP).  However, it has been a long time since new
> versions of these compendia came out, 

In fairness, IPv6 Node Requirements is close to up to date and is being
revised again at present: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp220

But if you don't find the following link scary, you are braver than me:
https://github.com/becarpenter/book6/blob/main/20.%20Further%20Reading/RFC%20bibliography.md

    Brian

> and of course the originals were
> never perfect.  They preceded important things like CIDR, DHCP, and HTTP
> that have become essential in the modern Internet.
> 
> For an oversight of the process that created them, see Bob Braden's
> "A Perspective on the Host Requirements RFCs":
> 
>    https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1127.html
> 
> And here is its paragraph on unresolved future work in email protocols:
> 
>    (15) SMTP: Global Mail Addressing
> 
>        While writing requirements for electronic mail, the working group
>        was urged to set rules for SMTP and RFC-822 that would be
>        universal, applicable not only to the Internet environment but
>        also to the other mail environments that use one or both of these
>        protocols.  The working group chose to ignore this Siren call, and
>        instead limit the HR RFC to requirements specific to the Internet.
>        However, the networking world would certainly benefit from some
>        global agreements on mail routing.  Strong passions are lurking
>        here.
> 
> 	John
>