Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!vixie From: vixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul Vixie) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: A bigger problem (was: Mail survey #1) Message-ID: <800@bacchus.dec.com> Date: 6 Sep 88 03:20:18 GMT References: <4740@b-tech.UUCP> <4747@b-tech.UUCP> <4748@b-tech.UUCP> <3703@rayssd.ray.com> <4750@b-tech.UUCP> <3710@rayssd.ray.com> <4753@b-tech.UUCP> <3722@rayssd.ray.com>Sender: vixie@decwrl.dec.com Organization: DEC Western Research Lab Lines: 48 Sigh. This just goes on and on. lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) writes: # What you are saying is that there are two sources of the same # information, and they tend to lose sync with each other quite often. # The first source is what is actually the case, and the second is what # is in the map entries. Eliot, The map is not the territory. Yes, people could set up their systems to send in map data every week or day or hour. I don't wish to be required to do two things, though: 1. Publish all my connections. Some of my connections are for private use only, and I publish them to a handful of sites only. Or I don't publish them at all, and I type the routes in my hand whenever I use them. 2. Tell the UUCP Project about it whenever I add something I _do_ intend to publish. I will tell them eventually, like in about three weeks or so after I've added and deleted and tuned and munged and stabilized things. I am coming to believe that you are simply unwilling to even begin to try to understand why someone wouldn't want to have a constant 1:1 correspondance between their connectivity and their public map data. Even if it's desired and attempted, there are reasons why it will never be the ideal that would be required to make active rerouting a safe practice. And that's what I mean when I say: The Map Is Not The Territory. You cannot make it so. For reasons of psychology, distributed self-interest, and for the simple lack of any intrinsic reason why the Territory should conform to your Map. I agree that the maps can be made much better, and that more updates should be sent in and that the maps should reflect the territory as accurately as possible. But: only within the limits of the desires of the local admins. That means you can't ask people to publish every connection they have. And that, in turn, means that you can't (short of rudeness) reroute their mail according to your (definitionally) limited view of the Territory. Are we on the same wavelength yet? Earth to Eliot, come in, Eliot... -- Paul Vixie Work: vixie@decwrl.dec.com decwrl!vixie +1 415 853 6600 Play: paul@vixie.sf.ca.us vixie!paul +1 415 864 7013