Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: My gawd...
Message-ID: <3379@cbosgd.ATT.COM>
Date: Fri, 20-Feb-87 15:20:13 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.3379
Posted: Fri Feb 20 15:20:13 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Feb-87 07:35:45 EST
References: <1061@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> <394@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Reply-To: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Distribution: world
Organization: AT&T Medical Information Systems, Columbus
Lines: 32
Summary: smail makes a PC speak RFC 822

In article <394@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk> jim@cs.strath.ac.uk writes:
>Oh, that it were true! What proportion of sites on USENET are stuck with
>V7-style mailers that can only cope with UUCP bang-style addresses? They
>won't comply with RFC822 and I doubt if many of them could become RFC822
>compliant even if they wanted to. [Anybody fancy putting sendmail or MMDF
>up on a XENIX box with a 20 Mbyte disk? :-)] 

Actually, there are easy ways to do this.  Smail runs very nicely on a
PC - I've used it on 20MB disk machines such as the AT&T 6300 PLUS.
I expect it works fine on Xenix, too, but I haven't tested it.  It
does not require putting up sendmail, MMDF, pathalias, or the like,
nor does it require sources to modify /bin/mail.  It does require a
C compiler, and it's most useful if you have a legal domain name
registered.

I suspect the same is true of some other software packages, like uumail.
For MS DOS machines, you can get RFC 822/976 compliance from UULINK.
I run it on a laptop Toshiba machine with only 720K floppy disks; I think
it can also be used from 360K floppies.

The real reason why many people will continue to run bang mailers is that
the typical systems sold by the major vendors only come with bang mailers.
Many people only run whatever comes in the box, because they don't know
any differently.  Some other places have the expertise to install smarter
software, but local politics or regulations forbid it.  Smail only came
out last August, and UUMAIL is also fairly recent.  The version of smail
that runs well on small machines was just posted to mod.sources this
week.  It's too soon for major systems to have them; it's even too soon
for market demand to develop.  AT&T and Microsoft and Berkeley will only
put such software in if their customers ask for it.

	Mark