Re: [GNU-linux-libre] [gnu.org #1262331] (inactive Linux distributions)

[bill-auger]

'www.' is indeed just a convention but it is not a "traditional" thing
of the past that should go away - it's meaning is still as well defined
and useful today as it ever was - sub-domains are very plainly a way to
distinguish one machine or service from the various other services that
may be offered under the base domain anme (which is often not associated
with any server), and to allow each machine or service to have a it's
own IP address (perhaps at different physical locations), while
remaining semantically associated under the umbrella of the main domain name

in the case of the 'www.' sub-domain in 'http://www.foo.com', that
clearly identifies the HTTP "World Wide Web" server of foo.com - as
distinguished from it's FTP server ftp.foo.com, it's mail server
smtp.foo.com, it's usenet server news.foo.com, and so on - some domains
have only a web server and so there is no confusion if there is a 'www.'
sub-domain or not; but to assume that as the default case is to assume
that every client that asks for 'foo.com' should always get a World Wide
Web server, which is to ignore the plethora of other services that can
be offered under the same domain as well the possibility that foo.com
may have no web server at all

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