Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jarthur!ucivax!gateway
From: Stef@ICS.UCI.EDU (Einar Stefferud)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: Re: Is X.400 good for international mail?
Message-ID: <1900.663307743@nma>
Date: 8 Jan 91 04:21:16 GMT
Reply-To: Stef@ICS.UCI.EDU
Lines: 36
Approved: usenet@ICS.UCI.EDU
In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 07 Jan 91 19:17:34 +0000.
             <1991Jan7.191734.9458@alphalpha.com>

>>The X.400 standard contains a number of pre-defined body types.
>>A user, user group or standards organization who needs some
>>additional body type can define it, and choose an object identifer
>>to identify it.
>Ah, you make it sound so easy.  We have an X.400 mail product right
>now that allows you to mail arbitrary enclosures, and of course we
>want to define some standard ones (e.g. Frame documents, Lotus 123
>files, GIF images, X bitmaps...).  But finding someone who's dispensing
>object identifiers for such purposes (and it really wants to be a
>world-wide directory of them) is a bit difficult.  Any ideas?

What you aree asking for is that LOTUS and other vendors get themselves
in gear and define their objects in ASN.1 and assign Object Indentifiers
to them.  This has to be done by the "ouwners" of the objects, such as
LOTUS, et al.  The standards specify how this should be done, and enable
the "owners" to do it.  Next, they only have to do it, and advertise the
OIDs and the ASN.1 definitions.  (Doing it and not advertising the OID
and ASN.1 is a no-op!)

>>for a long time. With T.61, every country is expected to define
>>its own subset for national use, which can be handled by the
>>terminals used within that country.
>Who is doing this in the U.S.?  (This stuff all seems so easy when
>you are talking about countries where the Post Office is the Phone
>Company is the sole provider of such services.  It's not that neat
>here.)

I expect that it is already done in the US, since the US uses IA5
(ASCII).  So, what do you want someone to do?

A more interestinng question is:  "How are we in the US going to deal
with allll those none ASCII characters that need to be displayed in mail
from our foreign correspoondents, and need to be typed on our ASCII-only
keyboards in order to send mail to them?"

Reminds me of the stories of the Tower of Babel...\Stef