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