Xref: utzoo comp.mail.misc:1646 comp.mail.sendmail:552
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!kgdykes
From: kgdykes@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ken Dykes)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: UCB Mail tries to be too smart
Message-ID: <23817@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: 21 Feb 89 23:52:33 GMT
References: <885@ur-cc.UUCP> <888@ur-cc.UUCP> <918@ur-cc.UUCP>
Reply-To: kgdykes@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ken Dykes)
Organization: S.D.G. UofWaterloo
Lines: 28

In article <918@ur-cc.UUCP> msir@cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes:
>I ask the net: Is this true?  Do "most Internet sites use RFC822 as their
>*internal* mail representation also"?

  I would HOPE so.  A mail package I am responsible for in the Bull-HN world
(Honeywell Bull) is basically rfc822 (and I am steering it to conformity)
and we don't currently have anything to do with Internet!
But there is the realization that sooner than later this product will
be gatewayed to Internet, USENET and just about any other net people get
their hands on.

 The way I see it, to survive the modern age you have only two choices
in mail representation/handling.
 1) rfc822
 2) x.400
(and there is rfc987 for rational mappings between 822 and x400)

Unecessarily doing translations on headers everytime you hit a gateway
or yet-another-host-format is just screaming for silly little irritating
problems like those mentioned (doing REPLY to address received via "forwards").
In general the fewer mappings a message is inflicted, the more likely it
will contain rational information at the end-point.
 -Ken
-- 
          - Ken Dykes,   Software Development Group, U.of.Waterloo
                         Waterloo, Ontario, Canada  N2L 3G1
kgdykes@watmath.uucp     kgdykes@water.bitnet     kgdykes@waterloo.csnet
kgdykes@watmath.uwaterloo.ca   kgdykes@watmath.edu  {backbone}!watmath!kgdykes