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From: pays@mars.emse.fr (Paul-Andre Pays)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: RE: Re: Smtp <---> X400
Message-ID: <9105310423.AA27042@mars.emse.fr>
Date: 31 May 91 04:26:48 GMT
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> From: Alf Hansen <Alf.Hansen@pilot.cs.wisc.edu>
>
>
> I am not sure if I got your last point here. If 2 X.400 users communicate,
> they use the X.400 addresses. If the user-interface allows it, the
> X.400 addresses can be presented on RFC-822 form, but this does not
> mean that the message has to go through 2 gateways.
>
> We are trying to put together the first draft of the RFC describing
> the requirements for Internet PRMDs, and under routing I will propose
> that X.400 messages should not leave the X.400 world and come back
> again.

The point was that you are right but how a X.400 UA user will know
that a given recipient is a X.400 user if the only knowledge he has ia
RFC domain name on the business card? In such a case users tend to
use DD.RFC-822 to input the given address (plus the SDA of the nearest
gateway they know)... You cann't ask this guy to know about what kind
of equipment other institutiions are using, You can't ask this guy
to have in mind the thousands of mapping entries, You can't even ask
this guy to use a UA with accees to the mapping tables...
In short the conclusion is: it is MANDATORY for people using X.400
UA to advertise their ORnames (they may optionaly add the RFC mapping)
but it must be known that they use X.400 and what is the ORname.
The problem is not for the MTA and Gateways but for the human users
when they will input recipients addresses.


>
> To "exist" and to "be publicly available" does not mean the same thing,
> unfortunately. Who will buy an expensive OSI product when you can get
> something better free? I am sure that the OSI technology is better than
> most of the existing technologies, but nobody has MADE AVAILABLE an OSI
> package with the same integrated set of services (X.400, X.500, FTAM
> corresponding to SMTP, DNS, FTP).

Right and wrong,
depends about whom you speak about?
   Yes research labs tend to refuse to pay for that kind of application
SW, but they don't represent the bulk of email users (potential users)
and that is probably the main difference with smtp, now Email is
spreading wide in the industry. These people don't mind the origin of
a product as long as 1. it suits their needs, 2. it is maintained,
3. they have guarantees from the vendor; they need to buy their soft
from commercial houses!.
   Another aspect is the self contradiction in the "something
better", if the free software does not provide the correct and
easy and friendly input of ORnames, while commercial product
does then the "free software" is no longer the better.


Regards

-- PAP