[774] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: IETF questions -- Internet growth
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marshall Rose)
Thu May 30 02:13:44 1991
To: vcerf@nri.reston.va.us
Cc: Alan Crosswell <alan@curta.cc.columbia.edu>,
Cc: Stef@ics.uci.edu
Reply-To: ietf@isi.edu
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 29 May 91 19:39:36 -0400.
Date: Wed, 29 May 91 23:09:19 -0700
From: Marshall Rose <mrose@cheetah.ca.psi.com>
I have some familiarity with ANSI registration, so perhaps this
information may be useful. Perhaps not. I've cc'd Stef since he is the
expert in this area: if he corrects me, consider his opinion to be
better steeped in reality.
With ANSI, you can request registration of alphanumeric nameforms for
use with OSI. If your registration is granted, then ALL you get,
REPEAT ALL YOU GET
is ANSI's guarantee that the name you registered with them will not be
registered a second time in their alphanumeric nameform registry. Of
course, if your registration is granted, someone might come along later
and challenge your use of the name. In this case, ANSI says that the
two of you get to slug it out and the loser has to vacate any claims to
the name. You can slug it out in a court-of-law or in an alley, as far
as ANSI cares.
So, a registration with ANSI is ONLY,
REPEAT ONLY
an entry in a registry. It is not,
REPEAT NOT
a right-to-use the name you registered for ANY purpose.
So, what good is it? Well, if we (the US) ever get our act together on
what Directory Distinguished Names should look like under c=US, then
perhaps the ANSI registry might be one source of names that is used. In
fact, the North American Directory Forum (NADF) has put forth a
proposal. A copy of this proposal can be found in RFC1218.
Oh, actually you get something else when you register an alphanumeric
name with ANSI: they give you a numeric name as well. You can use this
to build your own OIDs (the prefix is 1.2.840.your-number). You can
also use this when building NSAPs. However, ANSI has not yet defined
the NSAP format or where the number will plug in.
/mtr
ps: The North American Directory Forum is a collection of service
providers that offer, or plan to offer, a public North American
Directory based on X.500. They meet four times a year to reach service
implementation agreements. The next meeting is in July, and their
naming proposal will probably change a bit since it's gotten quite a few
comments!
