Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: rewriting FROM: lines
Message-ID: <8535@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 24 May 89 19:44:58 GMT
References: <31051@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <160@zebra.UUCP> <KARL.89May23174107@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 37

In article <KARL.89May23174107@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu> karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) writes:

>The problem is that !-paths expect the user to know the underlying
>infrastructure of how machines move mail from one place to another,
>which is a violation of the Principle of Least Astonishment.
>("Waddayamean, *I* have to know which 6 systems through which mail
>must pass to get to Joe WhatsHisName at ThatSystemOverThere?")

Alternately, the problem is that every machine has to know how to
find every other machine in the universe.  ("Waddaymean, I have to
store 6 megs of path information on my laptop and register it and
stay at the same place forever in order to get send and receive mail..)

The real problem is that there is no standard way to let another machine
route and forward mail for you.  There are ways to do this but they
tend not to produce a replyable path back.  If this could be done,
all you would need is one stable machine to service any number of
addressable but possibly transient other machines which would not have
to be individually registered.  Is there some way to make this work?
Or, perhaps the solution is a dial-up nameserver that anyone could access
(via a 900 number if no one wants to do it for free) with on-line
interactive registration.

>If you, in ?Denver? were to write physical snail mail to me, you
>wouldn't address it by stipulating the various post offices through
>which it would send, e.g., Denver, via airmail to Columbus, via truck
>to OSU campus mail, via deliveryperson to this dept, via
>secretary/mail-handler/whomever to my mailbox.  You'd be insulted if
>you were expected to know that much detail, or had to tell the US
>Postal Service people such things.  You address it geographically and
>organizationally, and you just expect it to Get There.

Don't forget that this works *only* by government mandate.  Wherever
you are, there has to be a post office willing to provide the service.
The same is not true electronically (why not?).

Les Mikesell