🚀 go-pugleaf

	I have a question or two for the mail wizards out there.  Some of
my concerns are probably old hat and I suspect you old-timers may be tired 
of answering them for us relative newcomers to net-hopping.  Some of these 
questions, however, may actually be interesting.  If there is a document 
(or 2 or 3, like the 'emily post' series), please feel free to point me 
that direction.  Otherwise, I volunteer to collect and summarize all 
responses to produce such a document.  All my questions evolved from the
following situation:
	I occassionally send mail from our ARPANET host to PSUVAX1, which 
is a USENET and BITNET host but not an ARPANET host.  I've used BERKELEY
as my point of departure from Arpaland to Usenet, with an address like

	<U1!U2!...!psuvax1!user@berkeley>, 

which uses the familiar USENET source route as the 'local part' of the 
RFC822 'addr-spec'.  Recently, PSUVAX1 made some changes and I began using 
an address like 

	<user%psuvax1.bitnet@berkeley>, 

which uses the '%' convention and BITNET neither of which I am familiar 
with.  Now I would like to send mail to BURDVAX, which I know that I 
can reach through PSUVAX1 via USENET.  The smart money addressing choice was

	<U1!U2!...!psuvax1!burdvax!user2@berkeley>,

however, I couldn't resist trying

	<burdvax!user2%psuvax1.bitnet@berkeley>,
		or
	<USEnetaddr % BITnetaddr @ ARPAnet>.

I was pretty sure the second would fail because the '%' is nowhere to
be found in RFC822, which means there's no formal operator precedence
between '!', '%', and '@', which means all bets are off.  Sure enough, 
BERKELEY took the first choice but flung the second back into my face.
The second addressing choice (or some legal variant) is my favorite 
because if BITNET is the path of choice to get to PSUVAX1 from here (perhaps
because it's not restricted to source routing like USENET), then I 
shouldn't be forced to use USENET for the whole trip simply due to 
addressing hassles.  I also like it because it uses 3 dissimilar, 
non-traditional-arpa-internet nets (Anyone know a better route involving 
CSNET?).
	My smorgasbord of resulting questions are below.  Again, I will
summarize the results and produce a document that we can point guys
like me toward in the future (unless, of course, one already exists).
To avoid cluttering mailboxes with possibly old issues, replies should 
come directly to me (gross@dcn7), unless of general interest to the group.

	1) I'm familiar with USENET (although a clarification between
UUCP and USENET would be useful), but not with BITNET.  Are there
articles descibing it (like the 10/83 CACM or Sigcomm '83 Proceeeding
articles on CSNET) or can someone give me a paragraph or two.

	2) Since '%' (percent) it isn't part of the RFC822 grammer, what 
does it mean and what is the convention for parsing it?  

	3) Is the "usenetroute@arpahost" convention a Berkeley kludge or
is it a recognized de facto standard of some sort?  

	4) Is there a permissable way to do the ARPA-to-BIT-to-USEnet
addressing implied in the second choice above?  In other words, is there
an accepted way to parse a mixture of '!', '%' and '@' together.  If so, 
how widely would it be accepted?

	5) Who develops these conventions for non-Arpa-Internet inter-
networking and how are they documented?

	6) How do people determine efficient UUCP/USENET source routes?

	7) Are Arpanauts guilty of a narrow worldview or should
non-arpanoids accept the one true way?  (I've asbestos lined my mailbox
for this one, just in case.)  This is another way of asking whether there
may ever be an ecumenical 'son of 822' to codify some of this stuff?

Awaiting Enlightenment,
Phill Gross

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