Re: A philosophical question about large directory structures

Just an opinion, but I don't think anybody wants to
guess at distinguished names. I actually think it's
likely to be significantly less effective than trying
to guess domain names, which people seem to be guessing
or otherwise figuring out today without too much
trouble. And I don't think any respectable user agents
will support guessing except possibly as some last
resort mode of operation. We've seen directory clients
moving more and more toward hiding DNs from users, and
I think that's a very good thing and one we're likely
to see increasingly.                 -- Tim

Erik Skovgaard wrote:
> 
> Thomas,
> 
> I agree that namespaces have to be unique, but I *also* believe they should
> make sense to users.  Granted, *some* host names are user-friendly, but
> many are not.
> 
> In the specific example you mention, I would suggest that {o=Sun
> Microsystems, c=ch} is a reasonable and guessable namespace.  I would not
> venture to guess what your hostname is.
> 
> Cheers,                  ....Erik.
> 
> -----------------------------------
> Erik Skovgaard
> GeoTrain Corp.
> Enterprise Directory Engineering
> http://www.geotrain.com
> 
> At 23:41 99/06/23 +0200, Thomas Lenggenhager wrote:
> >On Wednesday, 23 Jun 1999, Erik Skovgaard writes:
> >> The DC namespace is poorly suited for the Directory since the Internet host
> >> names are not all guessable.  For instance, if I were to look up Canadian
> >> Airlines, I would have to *know* that the hostname is 'cdnair.com'.
> >
> >We are going a bit off track with these messages about namespace.
> >
> >The namespace should mainly be unique. That would be provided by DC.
> >Finding something should not be tried to achieve by guessing the right
> >name, but by searching for it (index/directory).
> >
> >> Since the Directory name registration is closely tied to the legal names of
> >> companies in most countries, I think that makes for a much better choice.
> >> I would rather find Canadian Airlines as {o=Canadian Airlines, c=ca} than
> >> the somewhat cryptic {dc=cdnair, dc=com}.
> >
> >And how about the official name of Canadian Airlines in French and the
> >DN you proposed?
> >
> >What is the official name of a company?
> >       Acme    or Acme Inc.    or Acme, Inc.
> >
> >Just as an example of quite ugly and non-guessable names, the official
> >name of Sun in Switzerland:
> >       Sun Microsystems (Schweiz) AG
> >
> >Thomas
> >
> >

-- 
Tim Howes
Vice President, Technology
Office of the CTO
America Online, Inc.