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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ncr-sd!greg
From: greg@ncr-sd.UUCP (Greg Noel)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Pathalias/uumail: some algorithms and questions
Message-ID: <400@ncr-sd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Feb-86 18:56:53 EST
Article-I.D.: ncr-sd.400
Posted: Tue Feb  4 18:56:53 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Feb-86 04:56:17 EST
References: <122@delftcc.UUCP>
Reply-To: greg@ncr-sd.UUCP (Greg Noel)
Organization: NCR Corporation, San Diego
Lines: 36

In article <122@delftcc.UUCP> sam@delftcc.UUCP (Sam Kendall) writes:
>I think the algorithms that underly a pathalias-routing program such as
>Stan Barber's uumail are worth discussing, independent of their
>implementation.  What we need is a sort of "Guide to Using the Pathalias
>Database".

I agree.  After looking at both smail and uumail, I am becoming convinced
that they differ more in detail than in any major way.  I have also looked
briefly at HP's domain mailer and find that it is doing much the same sort
of thing as the other two.

In fact, I have been looking at extracting as much as possible of the
common code and putting it in a library that could be shared among all the
domain mailers; I have already started work on it.  So far, I haven't been
able to do much (my boss has this strange idea that I should be doing some
stuff for him), but libmail already has a couple of routines in it.

I think there should be a forum for the discussion for the algorithms, the
computational model, and for the interchange of code.  I don't think that
there is the kind of general interest needed for a newsgroup, but there
probably is enough grounds for a mailing list.  It could easily be an
extension of smailers@cbosgd (for the folks trying the beta version of
smail).  I would volunteer to moderate it except that San Diego is a bit
of a backwater in terms of network traffic and I'm not sure how good the
connectivity would be.  In any event, I \will/ volunteer to help out in
any way I can.

OK, domain mailer gurus, how about it?  Would you participate in a mailing
list to develop the underlying algorithms and thereby reduce the distance
between your separate implementations?

Oh, to answer some of your questions, smail has a much better nomenclature
for describing the types of mail routing; most of your variations are
included, as well as some others.
-- 
-- Greg Noel, NCR Rancho Bernardo    Greg@ncr-sd.UUCP or Greg@nosc.ARPA