[ih] Converging on MX use

Dave Crocker dhc at dcrocker.net
Thu Feb 27 13:18:14 PST 2025


On 2/27/2025 12:54 PM, Craig Partridge wrote:
> There was a USENIX paper (Mail routing using domain names, an informal 
> tour) by me in summer 1986 that discussed the mechanics.
>
> The meeting itself took place in January 1986 at SRI (two day meeting 
> -- the Challenger blew up on one of the two days).  Jake Feinler 
> probably had someone produce meeting notes (Ole J. or Ken H.?).

So, RFC 974 has a Jan 86 publication date. It does not include a 
'contribution' section, indicating who worked on the doc. Was there 
multi-service collaboration?

At the meeting in Jan 86, I assume the discussion was towards getting 
agreement and figuring out how to make this work.

The Summer 1986 Usenix Tech conference has a presentation by you, "Mail 
Routing using Domain Names", covering the agreement by Internet, UUJCP, 
CSNet, and BITNET.  This looks to codify the mechanics.

archive.org

1986 Summer USENIX Technical Conference & Exhibition Proceedings : 
USENIX Association : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet 
Archive <#>

Summer Conference ProceedingsJune 9–13, 1986Atlanta, Georgia USA

🔗 
https://archive.org/details/1986-proceedings-summer-tech-atlanta/page/n9/mode/2up 
<https://archive.org/details/1986-proceedings-summer-tech-atlanta/page/n9/mode/2up> 


The description of 'internet' as 'a network of networks' seems to extend 
nicely to this accomplishment, of a mail service that is a network of 
mail services.  (But I'm glad 'intermail' did not catch on.)

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker

Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
bluesky: @dcrocker.bsky.social
mast: @dcrocker at mastodon.social


More information about the Internet-history mailing list