[ih] DNS History

[Richard Bennett]

X.500 was a much broader-reaching directory service, whereas DNS was a 
simple name-to-address mapper. Companies such as Novell did their own 
directory services, and X.500 never took off because of the skullduggery 
that killed OSI. John Day's Patterns in Network Architecture covers some 
of the drama.

On 3/8/2010 12:31 PM, Craig Partridge wrote:
>> First, in terms of the RFC system, where are the comments themselves?  Were
>> they hard-copies that no longer exist, or mailing lists that have been
>> tucked away somewhere?  Is there any correspondence left (for DNS related
>> RFCs) or has it all been lost?
>>      
> There was no formal comment system (nor is there now).  But there were lots
> of comments on drafts on various mailing lists.   For DNS issues the
> archives of the namedroppers list is probably your best place
> (http://psg.com/lists/namedroppers and kudos to Randy Bush for bringing it
> up)
>
>    
>> Second, does anyone have or know where to find details about the
>> debates/conversations that took place leading up to RFC 1591 and what
>> appears to be a "compromise" between generic and ccTLDs?
>>      
> RFC 1591 is awfully late -- most key technical issues, as I recall, were
> determined when RFC973 came out.
>
>    
>> Third, it is not entirely clear to me exactly why DNS was engineered in
>> place of X.500.  It is my understanding at this early point in my research
>> that OSI standards seemed inevitable at one point, and sources have told me
>> that DNS was designed to get something out the door quickly (presumably
>> something that *wasn't* X.500).  Was X.500 simply based on an old paradigm
>> (white pages / old telecom) and seen as a bulky and slow alternative?  When,
>> and with whom, was the actual decision made to ditch X.500 altogether?  This
>> part of the story goes a long way to explaining why everyone in the world
>> doesn't have a unique identifier.
>>      
> I have my theory on that subject -- I'll send you the relevant paper I wrote
> on the history of email, there's a brief discussion.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Craig
>    

-- 
Richard Bennett
Research Fellow
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Washington, DC