Re: DNS and Directory Services

[Paul A Vixie <paul@vix.com>]

Simon, I think you and Geoff and I are all answering different questions.
Let me quote from <URL:ftp://ftp.vix.com/pri/vixie/dns-badnames.psf.gz>
which I wrote in 1995 and submitted to the Harvard infrastructure meeting:

@SubSection @Title{Weak Directory System} @Begin
@DP
The first thing than an average Internet user does when they want to know more
about some company is to take that company's name and wrap it up in a URL
of the form @B{"http://www."}@I{company}@B{".com/"}, since in many cases
this reaches a valid WWW page.  In most cases this does not work, but the
fact that users will try it just increases pressure on producers to try to
camp onto any name that might ``attract'' customers in this way.
@PP
The Internet badly needs a directory service.  @S{DNS} is not a directory
service and was never intended to be used as one.  However,
the current organization of the @S{COM} domain leads users to try
to use @S{DNS} as a directory system @I{anyway}.
@PP
A true directory service would (at a minimum) support
inexact matches and non-name search criteria, and it would be scalable.  Before
the Internet can be used as often and by as many people as the telephone,
it will need a directory system at least as good as what the telephone
companies have had for many decades.
...