Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!nosc!logicon.com!tots!tep From: tep@tots.UUCP (Tom Perrine) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Come on guys, we've got to improve e-mail Message-ID: <160@tots.UUCP> Date: 23 Jul 90 21:00:56 GMT References: <1990Jul20.122658.23729@mel.dit.csiro.au> Reply-To: tep@tots.Logicon.COM (Tom Perrine) Organization: Logicon, Inc., San Diego, California Lines: 46 In article Craig_Everhart@TRANSARC.COM writes: >For years I've been using an RFC{821,822}-compliant Internet mail system >that does almost all of what you suggest. > >Check out RFC 1049 and its commentators. > >Get yourself an Andrew source distribution from the X.V11R4 >distribution. There's a mail system that supports automatic >confirmation requests from users, among other things. Its design >sidesteps privacy issues, since return-receipt notices go out only after >explicit confirmation with the receiving human user, and it's understood >that you don't get a NAK from any transport agent. > >The Andrew mail stuff uses altered content-type information to embed any >ATK (Andrew ToolKit) object, presently including raster and line >graphics, line animations, styled and marked-up text, simple other-file >references, and so forth. > >Soapbox aside, I think there's a lot of current work on improving e-mail >services (PEM, for example) that you're simply ignoring. > > Craig Well, its a little tough for some of us to track every system out there :-) Are any of the Andrew "extensions" documented in RFCs? What I'm getting at is that the Andrew mail system, even though it may be widely/freely available, may not be an *interoperable* mail system, until the extensions and conventions it uses are documented in some place other than the source code (or accompanying system documentation). Don't get me wrong! It sounds *wonderful*, but I can't run Andrew here, but I *would* like to hack some extensions into Emacs RMAIL and mail modes. Specifically I would like to generate (and parse) the headers(?) that I need for return-receipt and any other non-graphical functionality I can find. Sorry to carrty on with this here, but I think that this point goes beyond just mail issues. Tom Perrine (tep) |Internet: tep@tots.Logicon.COM Logicon |UUCP: nosc!hamachi!tots!tep Tactical and Training Systems Division |-or- sun!suntan!tots!tep San Diego CA |GENIE: T.PERRINE "Harried: with preschoolers" |+1 619 455 1330 Home of the _Tower Operator Training System_ as seen in the SunTech Journal.