Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!balkan!wrangler!ssbn!bill
From: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Is UUNET going to upgrade?
Message-ID: <2085@ssbn.WLK.COM>
Date: 21 Jun 91 14:39:37 GMT
References: <1991Jun10.144434.21216@m2xenix.psg.com> <1991Jun18.024342.1387@uunet.uu.net> <1084@camco.Celestial.COM> <28609F47.1E0D@tct.com>
Reply-To: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy)
Distribution: na
Organization: W.L. Kennedy Jr. and Associates, Pipe Creek, TX
Lines: 45

>According to bill@camco.Celestial.COM (Bill Campbell):
[ wants batched mail... ]

chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) replies:
>Quite!  Batch SMTP already exists and is supported by Smail 3.1 (among
>other transports).  What say you, UUNET?  BSMTP could cut down
>significantly on E-Mail processing overhead, and lots of us out here
>in modemland are already using it.

I'm not a uunet subscriber but I can vouch for the efficiency and reliability
of the BSMTP in smail3.  This site gateways for several others and being able
to receive their mail in compressed batches is a huge win.  Here are the
problems with it and perhaps the very reason that uunet might be reluctant
to implement it.

If you're using compressed batches (I can't think of why you'd batch but
not compress) and something goes wrong with the decompression everything
delivers to /dev/null.  This has happened down here (TX) twice that I'm
aware of, I did it and a Dallas site did it.  In both cases it was a dumb
mistake by the SA (me) but in every case the mail was permanently lost.
This is uncharacteristic of an smail3 site but you have to realize that
the lossage isn't smail3, it happens before it ever gets into  the act.
Smail3 goes to every extreme to avoid losing mail, sometimes I think to
the extent that if all else fails and there's a radio on in the room it
would play it out there :-)

The other disadvantage to BSMTP is minor unless you have a lot of
addressees at the same site for the same message.  It's the nature
of SMTP, you queue up one copy of the message for each addressee.
If you use the uux transport a single copy of the message is sent.
Further, when you apply compression, I still think BSMTP is a win.

Since I'm not a subscriber I think that I can recklessly speculate on why
they have a conservative nature about both news and mail.  Think about
the combinations and permutations that they must serve.  They probably
talk to every OS version, hardware configuration, and SA skill level.
If they get ambitious, sophisticated, or exotic they're sure to break or
confuse one or more subscribers.  Accordingly, IMHO, they must opt for
the least complicated approach even when it's not the most efficient.
It's easy for me and Chip to hum the praises of BSMTP (I *love* it!) but
if I was administering mail at uunet I might shudder at the "collateral
damage" it could/would cause.
-- 
Bill Kennedy  internet  bill@ssbn.WLK.COM or ssbn!bill@attmail.COM
              uucp      {att,cs.utexas.edu,pyramid!daver}!ssbn.wlk.com!bill