Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucbvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!ucbcad!ucbvax!daemon
From: daemon@ucbvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: fa.info-vax
Subject: Gripes about the VMS MAIL (f)utility
Message-ID: <105@ucbvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Oct-83 07:59:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.105
Posted: Tue Oct 11 07:59:08 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Oct-83 09:33:03 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.UUCP
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Computer Science
Lines: 29

From GEOFF5@SRI-CSL  Tue Oct 11 04:58:34 1983
You've already seen my flames about how MAIL should enable an
out-of-band AST for ^H during message input and output a nasty
message, so I won't repeat that.

We too are faced with the problem of communicating with non-DEC-
supported networks and the need for store-and-forward mail.  We
don't want to run two mail systems since it's too confusing for
the user community (we flushed the Sventek msg because of this).
The problem was then to integrate the various kinds of MAIL into
the existing DEC environment.  Incoming mail is obviously no
biggie.  Outgoing requires some tricks.

We don't play games with DECnet objects, rather we take advantage
of a little "feature"--comments are preserved in To: lines.  In
order to send a message to my favorite mailing list, I send to
MAILER!Info-VAX@SRI-CSL.  MAIL ignores the ! and everything
following, but doesn't strip it.  A batch job runs as MAILER,
reads its mail, does something appropriate, and resubmits itself
to run twenty minutes later.  One problem with this scheme is
that you can't put MAILER!... in a distribution list.  Another
problem is that MAIL is a bit overzealous about upcasing the To:
line.  This is fixed at our site by patching MAIL to stop
upcasing as soon as it hits an ! (sorry, Kevin).  The patch for
V3.3 is available via FTP from JPL-VLSI (user ANONYMOUS, any
password) as DIST:FIXMAIL.COM.  The patch for V3.0-V3.2 is in
DIST:FIXMAIL.V32.
					-=EPS=-
------