why the second level domain in each country..

[Claudio Allocchio - [phone] <[e-mail]>]

Hallo John,
the original version (v1) of the proposal was, in fact, proposing exactly
what you're saying: x.400.arpa as a totally new root for the mapping
informations (x400 --> rfc822).

This proposal, however, was not accepted by a number of members of the IAB
and by the namedroppers group; they (IAB) proposed instead the use of a 
reserved second level at each country level. This was to "ensure" the
right collaboration in each country between the DNS authority and the
rfc1327 mapping authorithy. More over they felt it was better (and not
needed) to search again for a separate authority for the new tree at
each national level.

Your points are of course vaid, and in fact they were the basis of our
first idea (it was called x400.arpa, but the spirit is the same).
But also consider, and in this I agree fully with IAB people, that this is
a new additional service to the Internet community, and not a special
interest group willing to distribute their informations via DNS. It is
not like putting telephone numbers of all canadian geologists in there, but
it is much more close to filling in the correct reverse IP address resolution
of all your machines to ensure a better security.

In the mean time, also the collaboration between the DNS authority and the
rfc1327 mapping authorityshould contribute to reduce the "holes" in e-mail
routing showed by my last survey of a few days ago: some rfc822-like domains
produced by rfc1327 mapping rules are NOT routable correctly in the Internet
because they totally lack MX informations.

It took me some time to come to the conclusion that IAB and namedroppers were
right, I have to admit it, as it looked simpler just a new top rooted
tree... anyhow...

I'll start the survey you suggested, at least in the countries having
already their mapping tables defined. There is, indeed, the provisional
solution just to enable a start also in these countries (see my I-D draft
summary I sent out a couple of weeks ago), but I think also these data
can help, expecially in defining a transition plan.

OK... se you in Houston, then!

Claudio