[ih] .UK vs .GB

[Brian E Carpenter]

John,

On 14/04/2018 10:12, John Levine wrote:
> In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are
> mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB.

There are many versions of the story, I think. What I can say is this,
based on hearsay:

1. Please be aware that the nation state of which I was born a citizen is
called "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (since
1922). The colloquial way to refer to it is as "the UK".

As it happens I was born in the Great Britain part, which consists of
3 countries: England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland is most safely
referred to as "Northern Ireland"; referring to it as a "country", a
"province", or by the Unionist name of "Ulster", can quickly get you
into a vigorous political discussion.

2. Therefore, when SERCnet a.k.a. JANET invented Grey Book email, they
chose "UK" as the politically accurate top level domain (as in user at uk.ac.ucl).

3. Therefore, Postel did the right thing as JANET switched over to DNS
and SMTP. Rough consensus and running code in action.

4. Unfortunately, at some time the British delegation to ISO 3166 let
through GB - politically inaccurate, but in use since 1910 (sic) as the
nationality plate on cars from the UK.

5. Therefore, we are where we are, with UK being a reserved code
in ISO 3166, .UK being the active domain, and .GB being a dead end.

   Brian

> I know this came up before but can't find the discussion.  Pointers or
> rehash welcome.  The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example
> in RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166
> codes was in 1984.
> 
> For that matter, I see that JANET still runs .GB.  What still uses it?
> 
> R's,
> John
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