Length of User names

[Bill Campbell]

In <1991Jun01.144752.22884 at convex.com> tchrist at convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) writes:

:From the keyboard of imp at solbourne.com (Warner Losh):
::In article <1991May31.173152.791 at mlb.semi.harris.com>
::dcb at dave.mis.semi.harris.com (Dave Brillhart) writes:
::>At Harris, we finally decided to use the VMS standard of first
::>initial last name (truncated to 8 characters).  Kind of a  pain :-( 
::
::This is especially a *PAIN* when the system administrator sees "M.
::Warner Losh" and gives you the login "mlosh" and people send mail to
::"wlosh" since your name is Warner.  Fee and a pox be on all ye that
::try to standarize login names.

:Most sendmail configurations will accept mail to firstname.lastname
:or firstname_lastname instead of to that person's login.  No fuzzy
:logic involved, though: it has to match the gcos field exactly, 
:modulo case of course.   Why not just tell people to do this?  Finger
:can also help to locate login names.

:--tom
:--
:Tom Christiansen		tchrist at convex.com	convex!tchrist
:		"So much mail, so little time." 

Smail 2.5 also provides full-name aliasing and includes a program
that generates permutations of the full name including various
combinations of inititials.  You can send mail to me using:
	camco!Bill.Campbell
	camco!b.campbell
	camco!BILL.CAMPBELL
	Bill.Campbell at Celestial.COM
	....

Further if I were in the full name source as (\t is tab):
camco!bill\tJ. William Campbell

You could use:
	camco!j.w.campbell
	camco!w.campbell
	.....

Case is unimportant to smail aliases (spelling is).

We use this extensively here maintaining the fullnames alias file
from several databases.  You can send mail to any current member
of the Seattle Unix Group who is on the net using the address:
	camco!First_name.Last_name OR
	First_name.Last_name at Celestial.COM

Bill
-- 
INTERNET:  bill at Celestial.COM   Bill Campbell; Celestial Software
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             uunet!camco!bill   Mercer Island, WA 98040; (206) 947-5591