Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hou3c.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA
From: MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA (Mark Crispin)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Re: user-editable mail headers
Message-ID: <798@hou3c.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Aug-84 19:54:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou3c.798
Posted: Fri Aug 24 19:54:05 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Aug-84 01:12:41 EDT
Sender: ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist)
Lines: 19
To: ihnp4!hou3c!ka%MIT-EDDIE@MIT-MC.ARPA
Cc: WANCHO@SIMTEL20.ARPA, GDS@MIT-XX.ARPA, Header-People@MIT-MC.ARPA
In-Reply-To: Message from "ihnp4!hou3c!ka@mit-eddie" of Fri 24 Aug 84 15:59:34-PDT
Postal-Address: 725 Mariposa Ave. #103; Mountain View, CA 94041
Phone: (415) 497-1407 (Stanford); (415) 968-1052 (residence)


     Whether or not software is "quality" or no depends upon whether
or not it does what it is intended to do.  It is pretty silly to
expect Visicalc to execute PL/I programs.

     The TOPS-20 mailer agrees to act as a mail bridge only, not as
a "mail gateway".  It is the responsibility of the originating entity
to generate a message to the destination in correct format.  Similar,
all entities should use the same standard for message headers.  The
mailer (MMailr) knows nothing about RFC 822; its expertise is with
RFC 821 and other transport-level protocols.  It is completely
separate from any message composition agent.

     Any user agent which does not wish to take the responsibility
of composing a valid message for the destination agent should simply
not use a mail bridge.  Most of the TOPS-20 mail bridges would be
happy to have less traffic; they provide it only as a courtesy and
not as a guaranteed service.
-------