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Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnewsl!cbnewsk!pegasus!hansen
From: hansen@pegasus.att.com (Tony L. Hansen)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: International character set requirements needed
Summary: we need an 8-bit clean SMTP standard
Keywords: 8-bit data, mail
Message-ID: <1990Dec31.004055.10335@cbnewsk.att.com>
Date: 31 Dec 90 00:40:55 GMT
References: <1990Dec20.012516.23623@ico.isc.com> <1990Dec27.043500.27639@cbnewsk.att.com> <5044@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: hansen@cbnewsk.att.com (tony.l.hansen)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 27

<< From: hansen@pegasus.att.com (Tony L. Hansen)
<< By the way, the SMTP protocol doesn't permit 8-bit data. This limits
<< mailers which must send mail using that protocol.

< From: tut@cairo.Eng.Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill)
< True.  But there is no technical reason (other than short-sightedness)
< why SMTP has to strip off the 8th (high) bit.  There are in fact
< working versions of sendmail that don't disturb the 8th bit.

I agree completely, there is no reason to limit SMTP to 7-bits.
Unfortunately, the standard currently REQUIRES the stripping and doing
anything else is non-standard. I would definitely support changing the
standard to allow an arbitrary 8-bit byte stream. This would also require
eliminating the limitation of 1024-byte lines and anything else in the
standard which is not content transparent.

System V release 4 mail is completely content transparent. As long as the
transport media is capable of handling the mail, SVr4 mail will be able to
get it to you unchanged. Unfortunately, it can't do so over SMTP
connections.

Since this discussion is going somewhat away from the bounds of comp.text,
I've added comp.mail.misc to the Newsgroup list.

					Tony Hansen
				att!pegasus!hansen, attmail!tony
				    hansen@pegasus.att.com