[ih] Tell me about host names and 3com

[Greg Skinner]

On Jan 16, 2024, at 12:07 PM, Greg Skinner via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> On Jan 16, 2024, at 11:37 AM, John Levine via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
>> The domain in an e-mail addresss after the @ sign has to be a
>> hostname. RFC 1035 says that a hostname contains letters, digits, and
>> hyphens, with the first character being a letter.
>> 
>> RFC 1035 was published in November 1987, but 3com.com was registered
>> in December 1986. It is my vague recollection that the initial letter
>> rule was inherited from HOSTS.TXT, but since everyone knew Bob
>> Metcalfe, they said, oh, all right, a leading digit is OK so long as
>> it's not all digits.
>> 
>> Does anyone remember the details? RFC1035 is still the official
>> standard for hostnames, and the initial letter rule has been wrong for
>> a long time.
>> 
>> R's,
>> John
>> 
>> PS: This came up as we are finally trying to update RFCs 5321 and 5322
>> to match reality.
>> -- 
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>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> 
> I don’t know the answer to your question, but it came up on the namedroppers list, so perhaps that’s a good place to start.  Try the thread started by this post:
> 
> https://marc.info/?l=namedroppers&m=95837781926844&w=2
> 
> —gregbo
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
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A couple of additional notes:
* Later in the thread, Erik Fair tied the issue to hosts.txt. [1]
* The earliest mention I could find in the RFC series specifying that a host name start with a letter is in RFC608. [2]

[1] https://marc.info/?l=namedroppers&m=95837781926858&w=2
[2] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc608.html