- To all you gentlemen who have contributed to the discussion so far - As ESA-internal coordinator of domains and naming structure, I am obviously not too pleased to see another organisation use the same acronym, but I don't believe that this necessarily causes major problems. This is because of the following. In addition to adopting the registration policy recommended to us by RIPE, namely to register in each country esa.<TLD>, we have established a further convention. Underneath the esa.<TLD>, the name of the ESA establishment is added as a further subdomain in all cases, e.g. estec.esa.nl esoc.esa.de esrin.esa.it, etc. This implies that chances of a clash in domain names are *very* small. Furthermore, ESA has currently no establishments in CH and therefore no intention to register esa.ch. For the hypothetical case where this would happen, the question remains for me if and how the responsibility for a 2nd-level subdomain can be shared and coordinated between two organisations? Btw, I also know about another potential conflict coming up - I've heard of plans within Germany to align 2nd-level domain names with the regional abbreviations known to all from German car plates - e.g. K for Cologne, DA for Darmstadt, etc. Assuming that we as international organisation could stay out of this scheme and retain esa.de, this would cause a clash with the region of Eisenach (also ESA), and the same considerations as above would apply. Comments/Suggestions welcome! Regards, Walter ------------------------------------------------------------------ European Space Agency/Operations Centre Tel: +49-6151-90-2213 Robert Bosch Strasse 5 Fax: +49-6151-90-4213 D-64293 Darmstadt, Germany email: wdillen@esoc.bitnet
Underneath the esa.<TLD>, the name of the ESA establishment is added as a further subdomain in all cases, e.g. estec.esa.nl esoc.esa.de esrin.esa.it, etc. This implies that chances of a clash in domain names are *very* small. Whatever you do under the esa.XX domain, postmaster@esa.XX *must* be a valid address. Furthermore, ESA has currently no establishments in CH and therefore no intention to register esa.ch. That already solves the key problem in this case. For the hypothetical case where this would happen, the question remains for me if and how the responsibility for a 2nd-level subdomain can be shared and coordinated between two organisations? A domain "belongs" to one specific organisation; subdomains under it cannot "belong" to or be shared with a completely different organisation. Btw, I also know about another potential conflict coming up - I've heard of plans within Germany to align 2nd-level domain names with the regional abbreviations known to all from German car plates - e.g. K for Cologne, DA for Darmstadt, etc. Crazy idea: if company X moves from Cologne to Darmstadt, its domain name would change, they would have to reprint their letter heads, business cards, etc., and someone would have to cope with all the bounces of mails sent to the old domain name... Assuming that we as international organisation could stay out of this scheme and retain esa.de, this would cause a clash with the region of Eisenach (also ESA), and the same considerations as above would apply. Which makes it unlikely that you could stay out of such a "reorganisation" (I'd rather call it a mess-up). Comments/Suggestions welcome! Contrary to what I've suggested to you long ago, I'd now recommend that you put ESA under the .INT domain; chances are zero that there will ever be a .EU domain for Europe, unless someone can convince the Powers That Be that there is a very clear need for such a "pseudo top level domain", quite analogous to the current 3-letter TLD's; or maybe the analogy could be carried even further by creating a domain .EUR; but then, who is going to manage it? Piet
Whatever you do under the esa.XX domain, postmaster@esa.XX *must* be a valid address.
Who tells ? Just because it's a domain name it need not be a valid (domain part of a) mail address - unless there is an MX. Have you ever tried postmaster@ac.uk ?
For the hypothetical case where this would happen, the question remains for me if and how the responsibility for a 2nd-level subdomain can be shared and coordinated between two organisations? A domain "belongs" to one specific organisation; subdomains under it cannot "belong" to or be shared with a completely different organisation.
Again, who "owns" ac.uk ? ESA.XX could be the common 2nd level domain for all organisations with acronym ESA. It's a local decision to associate 2nd level domains with organizations.
Crazy idea: if company X moves from Cologne to Darmstadt, its domain name would change, they would have to reprint their letter heads, business cards, etc., and someone would have to cope with all the bounces of mails sent to the old domain name... Totally correct. If the company moves, they will have to change their business cards, letter heads ...
-Peter
Whatever you do under the esa.XX domain, postmaster@esa.XX *must* be a valid address. Who tells ? Just because it's a domain name it need not be a valid (domain part of a) mail address - unless there is an MX. At least under .NL it is a hard requirement that postmaster@domain.nl be a valid address. Have you ever tried postmaster@ac.uk ? ac.XX, co.XX, etc. are artifacts, not domains; the real domains go one level lower. Crazy idea: if company X moves from Cologne to Darmstadt, its domain name would change, they would have to reprint their letter heads, business cards, etc., and someone would have to cope with all the bounces of mails sent to the old domain name... Totally correct. If the company moves, they will have to change their business cards, letter heads ... PTT's take care of forwarding letters. Who is going to take care of forwarding e-mail? Piet
Totally correct. If the company moves, they will have to change their business cards, letter heads ... PTT's take care of forwarding letters. Who is going to take care of forwarding e-mail?
Unless the outdated domain name is reissued immediately (not a good idea at all) it still lives and the owner is free to populate it with appropriate CNAME and/or MX records. So you yourself or your friendly service provider care about e-mail forwarding. Within "DE" there have been some cases in the past where organizations changed their domain name (for other reasons but physical relocation), and this kind of "forwarding" was used. -Peter
> Totally correct. If the company moves, they will have to > change their business cards, letter heads ... > PTT's take care of forwarding letters. Who is going > to take care of forwarding e-mail? Unless the outdated domain name is reissued immediately (not a good idea at all) it still lives and the owner is free to populate it with appropriate CNAME and/or MX records. An outdated domain is unregistered right away and thus neither exists any longer nor has an owner. Piet
Btw, I also know about another potential conflict coming up - I've heard of plans within Germany to align 2nd-level domain names with the regional abbreviations known to all from German car plates - e.g. K for Cologne, DA for Darmstadt, etc. Crazy idea: if company X moves from Cologne to Darmstadt, its domain name would change, they would have to reprint their letter heads, business cards, etc., and someone would have to cope with all the bounces of mails sent to the old domain name...
But the change of postal address is normal in that situation so why not e-mail too? Jerzy Pawlus
participants (4)
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Peter Koch -
Piet Beertema -
Walter Dillen - ESAnet Services Section (ECNOD/COM/ES) -
yppawlus＠cyf-kr.edu.pl