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From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Incredible headers in AT&T "X.400" mail gateway
Message-ID: <3492@cbosgd.ATT.COM>
Date: Sun, 29-Mar-87 23:25:16 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.3492
Posted: Sun Mar 29 23:25:16 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 31-Mar-87 01:12:03 EST
References: <1907@hoptoad.uucp> <717@sl10c.concurrent.co.uk>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 30

In article <717@sl10c.concurrent.co.uk> alan@concurrent.co.uk (Alan Young) writes:
>In article <1907@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
>>I also propose that standard header names and syntax be used for
>>standard header lines, e.g. "To:" rather than ">To:" and "Message-ID:"
>>rather than "Ua-Message-Id:".  I also find it curious that they
>>actually followed the RFC822 standard by using "X-" as a prefix on
>>local header fields -- but only for one of the nine nonstandard headers
>>they added.
>
>There is a standard for "Mapping between X.400 and RFC822" by S. E.
>Kille of University College London, June 1986, UCL Technical Report 120,
>Request for Comments (RFC) 987. It avoids almost all the nasties you
>cite above.  Perhaps it would be nice if AT&T adopted it.

There is an NBS committee currently working on an NBS standard to map
between 822 and X.400.  They used RFC 987 as a starting point, but it
appears there were a few bugs in 987 they are resolving.  AT&T is on
the committee, and I expect they will probably base a future version
of their internal MTA standard on the NBS result.

But please realize that MTA predates RFC 987, and they see no point in
987-ifying MTA with the NBS standard coming up.  Also, MTA has extensions
that aren't in 987.

>To: is like the From_ line (often seen as >From) - it's an envelope
field, specifying who this copy of the message it to be delivered to.
X.400 has several message-id's, and the UA Message ID is just one of
them, as I understand it.

	Mark