[ih] DNS History

[John Day]

Yes but much this pays no attention to issues of security, access 
control or scope.

At 17:51 -0800 2010/03/08, Richard Bennett wrote:
>And now there's this Semantic Web thing and the Bob Kahn Digital 
>Object Identifier systems that aim to expose structure in web sites 
>so that the content can be more easily indexed, searched, and 
>grabbed. In the end, it's all about granularity and aggregating 
>local indexes.
>
>On 3/8/2010 5:26 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Could you say the same thing about X.500?
>>>
>>>>Nope -- early attempt to do the web.
>>>>
>>>>>Wasn't all that Archie and Veronica stuff an attempt to provide the
>>>>>Internet with a directory service?
>>
>>
>>This exchange is confusing things a bit.
>>
>>The Web publishes documents and has evolved into something that is 
>>probably best viewed as allowing interaction with documents.  (That 
>>might be a Procrustean view, given the lofty views of web 2.0, 
>>etc., but I'm trying to stay with basics.)
>>
>>Google, et all, scan the web and index it.  A search engine is not 
>>'the web', although it is a tool of the web.  The web is either the 
>>documents or the full set of things that touch the documents.  But 
>>a search engine is not 'the' web.
>>
>>Anonymous FTP published documents.  Lousy usability 
>>characteristics. Gopher published documents. Reasonable usability, 
>>but limited document style. They were the early sequence that led 
>>to the actual Web.
>>
>>Archie indexed ftp.  Veronica indexed gopher. Early search engines. 
>>These are services that are layered on top of the publication 
>>service and the publication service is passive, in that there was 
>>no organized registration of the documents, particularly, with 
>>respect to the indexing (more recent active web page support of 
>>search engines not withstanding.)
>>
>>X.500 was a user name registration scheme, originally designed to 
>>lookup users, especially for email. It started with the premise 
>>that, done in scale, a human name is not unique so that other 
>>attributes would be needed to distinguish the target user.  Since 
>>if flowed from X.400, the concept of a simple, global, unique email 
>>address was already a lost cause.  (Your global address was 
>>relative to your provider, which led to some interesting business 
>>cards, for folks who had multiple providers.)
>>
>>In its earliest discussions, the function description was 
>>strikingly similar to what we built for MCI Mail, so that
>>
>>    crocker, brandenburg, california
>>
>>might produce my address.  (My first participation in the X.500 
>>discussions was shortly after we had MCI Mail running, so I was 
>>able to confirm the utility of this basic model, though not the 
>>later technical design for achieving it in scale.  MCI Mail was a 
>>closed system.)
>>
>>But note that the data base that X.500 used was for actively 
>>registered email users, not passively available (rather than 
>>listed) documents.  This was meant to be more like a White Pages 
>>than a more general searching service, even as constrained as a 
>>Yellow Pages.  (But yes, goals expanded.)
>>
>>Besides having a search function, X.500 differed from the goals of 
>>the DNS by being finer-grained, targeting personal addresses, 
>>rather than host addresses.
>>
>>The differences between document publishing, personnel 
>>registration, name lookup and name (or, more generally, attribute) 
>>searching each warrant distinction from the other.
>>
>>d/
>
>--
>Richard Bennett
>Research Fellow
>Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
>Washington, DC