Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/fade into you/being there/How To & FAQ's/mime-faq.txt

Text File | 1994-11-12 | 113KB | 3,066 lines

==========================================================
comp.mail.mime frequently asked questions list (FAQ) (1/3)
==========================================================
Part 1: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about MIME
~~~~~~
--

Overview
--------
This is part 1 of a Frequently Asked Questions document about MIME, the
multipurpose and multi-media standard for Internet mail.

Part 1 covers frequently asked questions.

Part 2 is a listing of MIME products.

Part 3 covers advanced topics.

Sections in the table of contents that have changed since the last
posting are marked with a '!' in the first column.  New sections are
marked with '+'.

--
Contents
~~~~~~~~
Part 1: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about MIME (this file)
========================================================
  1)     Introduction
  1.1)   Authorship
! 1.2)   Conventions
  1.3)   Where can I get the comp.mail.mime FAQ?

  2)     What is MIME?
  2.0)   Help!  I got a message in MIME format--how do I decode it?
  2.1)   Introduction
  2.2)   MIME features that may or may not be present
  2.3)   Further information
  2.4)   MIME glossary
  2.5)   Newsgroups and mailing lists

  3)     Miscellaneous questions
  3.1)   What can I use to display MIME messages?
  3.2)   What's "text/enriched"?  "text/simplemail"?
  3.3)   What about security issues?
  3.4)   So, does MIME introduce any new security problems?
  3.5)   What about a group 3 facsimile encoding?
  3.6)   Should I always use external body parts to save space?
  3.7)   What mail servers can I reference?
  3.8)   Can I interwork between MIME and X.400?
  3.9)   Why does MIME define base64 instead of using uuencode?
  3.10)  How can I use uuencode with MIME?

  4)     MIME information available from the Internet
  4.1)   Anonymous FTP
  4.2)   Mail based archive servers
  4.2.1) Eitech "ServiceMail"
  4.2.2) Metamail "mailserver"
  4.3)   Gopher
  4.4)   World Wide Web

  5)     Published books and articles

  6)     MIME based relays for commercial mail services
  6.1)   Large national or international providers
  6.1.1) ATTMAIL
  6.1.2) CompuServe
  6.1.3) RadioMail
  6.2)   Local and regional providers

Part 2: MIME products (posted separately)
=====================
  7)     Freely available MIME packages
  7.1)   Libraries
  7.2)   Conversion tools and extension packages
  7.3)   Mail user agents and transport systems

  8)     Commercial MIME packages

  9)     Packages for MIME in USENET
  9.1)   Introduction
  9.2)   News readers and transports with MIME support

Part 3: Advanced topics (posted separately)
=======================
  10)    Information
  10.1)  MIME-relevant RFCs and other standards
  10.2)  List of registered MIME types
  10.2.1)  List of registered MIME types
  10.2.2)  List of known unregistered MIME types
  10.3)  Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working groups

  11)    Developers' FAQs
  11.1)  How can I register a new MIME type?
  11.2)  What's ESMTP, and how does it affect MIME?
  11.3)  Where can I get some sample MIME messages?
  11.4)  Wouldn't MIME be better if it did <foo>?
  11.5)  So what about multilevel encodings?
  11.6)  Why doesn't MIME include a mechanism for compression?

  12)    Acknowledgements
--

1) Introduction
---------------

1.1) Authorship

Current maintainer:
  Jerry Sweet <[e-mail]>

Previous maintainers (thanks, guys!):
  Ed Vielmetti - originator
  Tim Goodwin

Contributions have come from a cast of dozens; see section 12 for the
list of contributors.

--------------------------------

1.2) Conventions

 - Direct quotations begin with an attribution in a standard format,
   and are indented by four spaces.


 - Pointers to resources available via the Internet, such as references
   to FTPable goodies, appear in WWW URL format.  URLs beginning with
   "ftp:" refer to FTP sites.  For example:

   ftp://domain.name/path/to/package

   Those with FTP access, but without WWW access, may treat such
   references as follows:

   1. Log into host domain.name using anonymous FTP
   2. Look for /path/to/package

   An FTP reference usually lists only the distribution site; please
   try your nearest FTP archive first.  Archie may be of some help
   here.

   URLs beginning with "http:" refer to WWW servers.  URLs beginning
   with "gopher:" refer to gopher servers.

   Internet browsing tools, such as Mosaic, know about URLs.


 - You'll occasionally see text in braces, like this.

   { Here is some example meta-text. }

   Generally, these indicate places where information is missing, or
   where the information may be unreliable, or where major changes are
   planned in the near future.  You can ignore these if you're just
   looking for information.  But if you can help fill in the gaps, and
   you want to achieve fame, fortune, and your name at the bottom of
   this FAQ, please send e-mail to the maintainer.

--------------------------------

1.3) Where can I get the comp.mail.mime FAQ?

 - It is posted approximately monthly to the newsgroups comp.mail.mime,
   comp.answers, and news.answers.  The "Expires:" field is set such
   that---on systems which honor this field---the most recent edition
   will always be in the news spool.


 - Many sites archive news.answers postings, including these:

   ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.answers/mail/mime-faq/
   ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/mail/mime-faq/

   If possible, please try to find a closer site; for example, by
   asking archie for "mime-faq".


 - An automatically generated HTML version of the MIME FAQ is available
   at this URL:

   http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/text/faq/usenet/mail/mime-faq/top.html

   It's brought to you courtesy of Ohio State University.

   The reason that this MIME FAQ document is marked up the way it is,
   with dividers and score marks and so on, is that these marks
   facilitate automatic conversion of the document to HTML format by
   the Ohio State server.


 - If you are reading this FAQ via some fixed medium such as hardcopy
   or CD-ROM, please try to obtain the latest edition from the net
   instead.
--


2) What is MIME?
----------------

Well, let's answer a frequently asked question first, then get to an
introduction.

--------------------------------

2.0) Help!  I got a message in MIME format--how do I decode it?

If you have problems reading a message in MIME format, it might be for
any of the following reasons:

Scenario 1:
  Your mail system outsmarted itself--it can handle some MIME stuff,
  but not whatever it is you received.  For this, you'll either need a
  smarter mail system, or you'll need to tell the mail system how
  to handle whatever's in the message, or you'll need to defeat the
  mail system entirely, and look at the message in its "raw" state.
  Precisely how to do any of these things depends on the type of
  mail system that you have.  The next scenario presents information
  about how to handle a similar situation.

Scenario 2:
  Your mail system doesn't understand MIME stuff at all.  For this,
  you must either content yourself with the "raw" message, or you
  can try to track down some tools to help you.  From John Gardiner
  Myers <[e-mail]>, we have this advice:

    A minimalist MIME-reading program, munpack, is available via
    anonymous FTP to ftp.andrew.cmu.edu in the directory pub/mpack/.
    The program reads MIME messages and writes the decode parts out to
    files.  Versions are available for Unix, MS-DOS, Macintosh, and
    Amiga platforms.  [ See part 2 of this FAQ for information about
    the mpack tool suite. ]

Scenario 3:
  You don't have all the necessary equipment to listen to an audio
  part, or to view a graphical part, or to read text written
  in a foreign character set.  You're out of luck here; you can
  handle a lot of MIME stuff on a plain old 24x80 ASCII terminal,
  but let's face it: if you're stuck with something like that, YOU
  LOSE.  If someone asks you how to listen to an audio message on
  a 24x80 ASCII terminal, call in the Noogie Patrol.  (Yes, this
  kind of question gets asked all the time.  Consult the glossary
  in section 2.4 if you don't know what a noogie is.)

Scenario 4:
  Your mail system doesn't want to show a "message/partial" (like this
  one).  For this, you may need to assemble all the parts of the
  message together.

  - With MH, you can assemble the message together using the command
    "mhn -store cur:3".  Alternatively, you can view the "raw" message
    by using the MH command "show -noshowproc".

  - For mailcap-based mail user agents, the mailcap file needs an
    entry for message/partial.  One entry, contributed by Tim Goodwin,
    is this:

        message/partial; showpartial %s %{id} %{number} %{total}

    The showpartial command is part of the metamail distribution.
    See section 7 for a description of metamail.

  { Brief advice for specific mail systems welcome. }

--------------------------------

2.1) Introduction

MIME, the Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions, is a freely available
specification that offers a way to interchange text in languages with
different character sets, and multi-media e-mail among many different
computer systems that use Internet mail standards.

If you were bored with plain text e-mail messages, thanks to MIME you
now can create and read e-mail messages containing these things:

        - character sets other than ASCII
        - enriched text
        - images
        - sounds
        - other messages (reliably encapsulated)
        - tar files
        - PostScript
        - FTPable file pointers
        - other stuff

MIME supports not only several pre-defined types of non-textual
message contents, such as 8-bit 8000Hz-sampled mu-LAW audio, GIF image
files, and PostScript programs, but also permits you to define your
own types of message parts.

The ability to create e-mail messages with audio and other non-textual
contents has been around for a while, but almost always as part of a
vendor-specific "solution."  This means that you can't create a
message on a NeXT system containing PostScript information and "Lip
Service" (NeXT's audio e-mail tool) and easily handle the same message
on an HP 9000/710, a Sun SPARCstation IPC, and a Silicon Graphics
Iris.  That's a problem that MIME helps to solve.

One of the best things about MIME is that it's a "four-wheel drive
protocol" (to borrow a description applied originally to PhoneNet by
Einar Stefferud).  MIME was carefully designed to survive many of the
most bizarre variations of SMTP, UUCP, and Procrustean mail transport
protocols, such as BITNET and MMDF, that like to slice, dice, and
stretch the headers and bodies of e-mail messages.

Here are a couple of examples of how MIME is being used in the real
world, now.

1. Dr Marshall T. Rose mails out his SNMP-related newsletter, "The
Simple Times" as multi-media e-mail messages in several forms:

        - in a PostScript form, with beautiful typesetting and a
        two-column page layout, suitable for printing on a laser
        printer;

        - in a "text/richtext" form (explained in question 3.2),
    suitable for display on a mildly intelligent ASCII terminal;
    and

        - in a plain text, ordinary message form.

(SNMP is the Simple Network Management Protocol.)

2. IETF document announcements (RFCs, Internet Drafts, etc.) are
structured as multipart MIME messages.  The first part contains the
document abstract.  The second part is itself a multipart message,
containing external references to the document itself (one via a
mail-server, one via anonymous FTP).  Thus, with a suitable UA (User
Agent, see 2.4 for glossary), you can read the abstract, and then have
the complete document retrieved for you (by the most appropriate method)
at the press of a button.

--------------------------------

2.2) MIME features that may or may not be present

Implementations of multi-media e-mail need not support the full spec;
it's possible to have a useful product that does not explore all of
the nooks and crannies of the standard.

Furthermore, MIME permits a message to contain alternative parts for
consumption by sites that can't necessarily display or listen to all
the good stuff.

Here is a list of features that someone with a good, functional
mail user agent might include for MIME support.

 - Displays GIF, JPEG, and PBM encoded images, using e.g. 'xv' in the X
   Window System, or (name of windows program here) in Microsoft Windows.

 - Displays PostScript parts, using e.g. something that prints to a
   PostScript printer, or that invokes GhostScript on an X Window System
   display, or that uses Display PostScript.

 - Obtains external body parts via Internet FTP or via mail server.

 - Plays audio parts on workstations that support digital audio.

On the other hand, the minimal requirements for a MIME-conformant MUA
are almost trivial, yet still provide increased functionality.  (The
minimal requirements are mainly concerned with ensuring that users are
not shown raw data from a MIME message inappropriately.)

--------------------------------

2.3) Further information

A nice overview of the MIME specification by Mark Grand is available
from:

ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mdg/mime.ps
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mdg/mime.txt

{ Any other documents that should be referenced? }

--------------------------------

2.4) MIME glossary

Every subculture needs its list of buzzwords, here's a start at a
collection for MIME.

body            the part of a message after the header (the "meat")
ESMTP           Extended SMTP - RFC 1651
external part   a "pointer" to a part available via FTP or other means.
GIF             graphical interchange format for images
header          the To, From, Subject, etc. at the start of a message
JPEG            an image compression standard for still images
mail transport  the "post office", e.g. sendmail, smail, MMDF, etc.
MIME            Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - RFC 1521
MPEG            an image compression standard for moving pictures
MTA             Mail Transport Agent, see "mail transport"
MUA             Mail User Agent, see "user agent"
multi-media     nebulous marketroid term meaning audio and visual stuff
noogie          Zen technique to improve understanding - knuckles on skull
part            a piece of a MIME message containing some data type
PBM             an image format
PEM             Privacy Enhanced Mail
PostScript      a popular page description language
RFC             request for comments; proposed or standard Internet protocols
SMTP            Simple Mail Transport Protocol - RFC 821
text/enriched   simple text markup language for MIME - RFC 1563
text/simplemail another (even simpler?) text markup language
URL             WWW uniform resource locator; access-method://host/path
user agent      the end user's mail program, e.g. MH, ELM, /bin/mail, etc.
WWW             the worldwide web (see section 4.4)

--------------------------------

2.5) Newsgroups and mailing lists

 - You're probably reading comp.mail.mime at the moment.  This is
   the USENET newsgroup devoted to discussions of MIME.


 - There is also a mailing list, info-mime, which is gatewayed with
   comp.mail.mime.  This is a bidirectional gateway, so every message to
   the mailing list also appears on the newsgroup, and vice versa.  If
   you are unable or unwilling to read USENET news, send subscription
   requests to:

     [e-mail]


 - There is a UK exploder for info-mime (info-mime-uk).  Contact:

     [e-mail]

   The Mailbase software archives all contributions, which are then
   accessible via these URLs:

   ftp://mailbase.ac.uk
   gopher://mailbase.ac.uk

   ...and via mailserver; send a message to [e-mail], with
   a message body containing, e.g. "send info-mime-uk 08-1993".


 - The archive ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/usenet/comp.mail.mime stores
   articles in three formats: by subject, by article number, and by
   month.  See the README file for more information.


 - There is also a [comp.mail.multi-media] newsgroup, which contains
   general discussions of multi-media e-mail, not necessarily MIME.


 - There are various mailing lists specific to particular
   implementations of MIME.  If we know of such a list, it is
   mentioned in the section of this document about that
   implementation.
--

3) Miscellaneous questions
--------------------------

3.1) What can I use to display MIME messages?

You need something that understands MIME-structured messages and also
understands how to display the different kinds of body parts.

Details of many freely available and commercial packages to do just
that can be found in part 2 of this FAQ.

--------------------------------

3.2) What's "text/enriched"?  "text/simplemail"?

These two subtypes of the "text" type have a similar aim: to offer
simple text markup, without making the text unreadable to someone
without the software to interpret it.

The text/enriched scheme uses markup commands enclosed in angle
brackets.  For example, here is how you would <bold>embolden</bold> a
single word.

Simplemail is more like a standardization of certain existing
practices in mail and news articles.  For example, here is how you
would *emphasize* a single word.

The text/enriched type is defined in RFC 1563.  It supersedes
text/richtext, which was defined in RFC 1341.

--------------------------------

3.3) What about security issues?

Both users and administrators should be aware that ordinary Internet
and UUCP e-mail is not secure.  No authentication, confidentiality, or
data integrity properties are provided in SMTP, RFC 822, or MIME.
Persons desiring any or all of those security properties in their e-mail
should look into the use of Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM).  At least one
no-cost implementation of PEM is available in the US and Canada.
There are also a number of implementations being developed in Europe
(hopefully these will not suffer the same restrictions on export).

PEM will (eventually) be integrated with MIME.  See

    draft-ietf-pem-mime-03.txt

for the latest work on this.

A system providing similar functionality to PEM implementations is
PGP.  PGP is an implementation, not a specification, and it does not
carry the blessing of the IETF, or any other body.  It is, however,
available at no cost throughout the world (although its status with
respect to certain US patents is dubious).  Caveat emptor.

    [ "Jeffrey I. Schiller" <[e-mail]>  24-Jun-1994 ]

    There is now a freeware version of PGP that is not dubious from a
    patent standpoint.

{ This section needs additional information. }

--------------------------------

3.4) So, does MIME introduce any new security problems?

Yes.  MIME user agents can do previously unheard of things with mail
messages, notably giving them as input to other programs.

PostScript is probably the biggest potential security hole.  One
famous example is the "melting screen" PostScript program, which
destroys screens maintained by Display PostScript implementations.  For
another example, PostScript can be used to change the password on some
PostScript printers with previously undefined passwords, which denies
the use of the printer until the printer's password can (somehow) be
changed back.  Yet other Display PostScript implementations may allow
file operations.  (NeXTstep wisely disables file operations.  With
GhostScript, they can be disabled by the "-dSAFER" command line option.
Use of this option (in mailcap, etc.) is highly recommended.)

The enumeration of these security holes is not to be interpreted as
encouragement to exploit the holes.  They are mentioned only because
they are well known.  Refer to books such as "Practical UNIX Security"
and to news groups such as comp.security.misc for general information
about system security.

--------------------------------

3.5) What about a group 3 facsimile encoding?

It is rumored that there was an attempt to include G3 FAX in the
original MIME specification, but that it was impossible for the
authors of the MIME specification to gain a consensus on how to encode
the data.  So G3 FAX has been left for a future MIME implementation.
But you can always define your own body part.

Here are some snippets relevant to MIME and FAX.

The MIME-MHS documents define a G3Fax body part that is conformant with
the X.400 G3Fax definition.

    [ Stuart Lynne <[e-mail]> 30-Dec-1992 ]

    I have prototype scripts operating with metamail to do some of this.
    Some of it is in contrib directory.

    Currently I have 2 scripts:

        mm2fax  - convert mail and metamail messages to TIFF/F (uses various
        tools to convert different body parts to TIFF/F);

        faxmm   - send rfc822 and mime e-mail messages via facsimile (uses
        mm2fax to convert to TIFF/F).

    [ Ned Freed <[e-mail]> 31-Dec-1992 ]

    PMDF-FAX is a set of channel programs for PMDF that provide
    facilities for converting text, PostScript, and various other
    formats into Group 3 FAX, as well as a set of programs that take
    these Group 3 FAX files and use them to drive a variety of FAX
    modems.  MIME is used throughout to provide type information,
    multipart facilities, and so forth. PMDF-FAX was developed with MIME
    in mind from the outset.

--------------------------------

3.6) Should I always use external body parts to save space?

Not necessarily.  In many cases, for example, at the ends of UUCP
connections, your recipients may not be able to retrieve external body
parts easily.  It depends on your audience.  Making files available via
a mail server is to be encouraged.  It is always possible to provide
MIME alternative parts that first offer FTP, then mail server options.

--------------------------------

3.7) What mail servers can I reference?

There are various mail servers available.  Check news.answers for
the FAQ about mail server software.  We do not presently have a
recommendation.

--------------------------------

3.8) Can I interwork between MIME and X.400?

Conversion between RFC 822 and X.400 is defined in RFC 1327 and
RFC 1495.

Recently, the MIME-MHS working group has published RFCs (which are on
the IAB standards track) which extend RFC 1327 to define conversions
between MIME and X.400.

Some MTAs, notably the ISODE Consortium's version of PP (see section 8)
have MIME gatewaying support.

--------------------------------

3.9) Why does MIME define base64 instead of using uuencode?

    [ Ed Greshko <[e-mail]> 15-Apr-1994 ]

    The *major* reason is that there is no standard for uuencode.  While
    it is popular, the many flavors of uuencode in existence make it a
    prime candidate for *non*-interoperability.

    [ John Gardiner Myers <[e-mail]> 1-Jun-1994 ]

    Some gateways damage messages in the more common uuencode formats.
    Gateways that convert between EBCDIC and ASCII, in particular, tend to
    damage some of the characters used in the uuencode format.  The base64
    encoding is designed to be invulnerable to all known gateways.

{ Additional information, horror stories, etc., welcome. }

--------------------------------

3.10) How can I use uuencode with MIME?

The following idea from Nathaniel may be useful.  For some examples of
this in action, see the newsgroup clari.feature.dilbert.

    [ Nathaniel Borenstein <[e-mail]> 4-Nov-93 ]

    I recently convinced myself that you can use multipart/alternative
    to get a nice effect for both MIME-smart recipients and
    uuencode-loving recipients, although it is ugly and wasteful:

    Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary=foo

    --foo
    Content-type: application/octet-stream; name=foo.uu

    ...uuencoded data goes here....
    --foo
    Content-type: real-mime-type
    Content-type: base64

    base64-encoded data goes here
    --foo--

    A good MIME viewer will only use the second part, the real MIME
    data.  A uuencode-oriented system, however, should ignore everything
    EXCEPT the uuencoded data, because of the way uuencode works
    (everything before the "begin" line and after the "end" line is
    ignored).

    I certainly wouldn't want to recommend the above as standard
    practice, but I imagine that are enclaves or situations where it
    could be useful.
--

4) MIME information available from the Internet
-----------------------------------------------

4.1) Anonymous FTP

Information about FTPable stuff is scattered throughout this FAQ.
More specifically, look into the RFCs.  Other goodies can be found in
the MH and MetaMail source trees:

ftp://thumper.bellcore.com/pub/nsb

This contains a collection of MIME sample messages which can be used
to test implementations.

--------------------------------

4.2) Mail based archive servers

4.2.1) Eitech "ServiceMail"

    [ Jay C. Weber <[e-mail]> 13-Oct-1992 ]

    We (Enterprise Integration Technologies Corporation) have a MIME
    implementation, which we are distributing freely.  Instead of a
    MIME MUA, it is a toolkit for building services that automatically
    process MIME messages.  It is similar, in spirit, to the few other
    e-mail-scripting packages except:

      o it exploits several MIME features
      o it is intended to run standalone (as opposed to a back-end to a MUA)
      o it uses TCL (from Berkeley) as its scripting language

    and support for PEM is in the works.

    EIT is providing ServiceMail access to the ServiceMail toolkit.
    If you have the METAMAIL or some other MIME-compliant mail reader,
    just send the message

        To: [e-mail]
        Subject: archive-request servicemail.tar.Z

    and read the response(s) using METAMAIL.  Save the result in
    servicemail.tar.Z

    The package can also be retrieved by anonymous FTP from the site
    eitech.com.

    If you have any problems with acquisition, installation, or use,
    don't hesitate to send mail to "[e-mail]" and
    ask for help.

    IF YOU WANT FUTURE UPDATES ON TOOL KIT VERSIONS, BUGS, AND
    SERVICES, MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON THE PACT-KIT MAILING LIST.  To get
    on it, send a message to "[e-mail]" with subject
    "listserv subscribe pact-kit your-real-name".

--------------------------------

4.2.2) Metamail "mailserver"

    [ Nathaniel Borenstein <[e-mail]> 9-Jan-1993 ]

    The metamail distribution includes a simple "mailserver" shell
    script that can be used to operate a MIME-conformant mail server
    mechanism, e.g. for making anon-ftp files available as MIME mail.
    ServiceMail is also now available under the "contrib" area of the
    metamail distribution.


4.3) Gopher

    [ Randall Atkinson <[e-mail]> 2-Jan-1993 ]

    There is experimental work underway in the Internet Gopher community
    to include MIME as a mechanism for marking the content of files.
    The freely distributable Gopher client for NeXTstep 3.0 includes
    MIME support.  Other gopher clients will probably add it eventually.

--------------------------------

4.4) World Wide Web

    [ Marc VanHeyningen <[e-mail]> 26-Jun-1993 ]

    There is more-than-experimental work underway in the Internet World
    Wide Web (WWW) community to use MIME as the mechanism for marking
    the contents of information exchanged via HyperText Transfer
    Protocol (HTTP); the specification of HTTP/1.0 dictates that both
    the request and the response are more or less MIME-compliant
    messages.  There are implementations already doing this today.

    Support is also included for format negotiation (e.g. a server
    might have both a PostScript and a plaintext version of a paper
    and decide which to send based on what the client can accept,
    presentation preferences, size, and the like.)  It's nearly as
    complicated as the "badness" mechanisms in TeX, and unrelated to
    (and, for its application, probably superior to) the
    multipart/alternative MIME type.

    There is an FAQ for WWW in comp.infosystems.www
--

5) Published books and articles
-------------------------------

 - "The Internet Message: closing the book with electronic mail"
   Marshall T. Rose
   Prentice-Hall
   ISBN 0-13-092941-7

 This book is a complete review of the Internet world of electronic
 mail, including recent developments.  There is considerable detail,
 and it would make the perfect companion to the mail RFCs for any
 budding implementor.

 On the other hand, the detail should be quite easy to skip for those
 interested in just an overview.

 As usual, Marshall's informed and often vigorous opinions are clearly
 marked off as "soapboxes", to be objectively skipped or delightedly
 sought out, according to preference.

 One chapter of the book is devoted to MIME.


 - Connexions Sep 1992

    [ Alec Henderson <[e-mail]> 18-Dec-1992 ]

    There is a good introductory article on MIME in the September 1992
    issue of Connexions; also several other interesting articles on
    e-mail, both MIME and X.400.  (Ole Jacobsen, the Connexions
    editor, was kind enough to send me a copy of the September issue.)

--

6) MIME based relays for commercial mail services
-------------------------------------------------

6.1) Large national or international providers

{ Lots missing here.  Anyone got any info these, or any others? }
{    America On-line                                            }
{    Dialog                                                     }
{    Genie                                                      }
{    MCI Mail                                                   }
{    Sprintmail                                                 }


--------------------------------

6.1.1) ATTMAIL

    [ Steve <[e-mail]> 30-Dec-1992 ]

    We do support binary attachment but are not MIME compliant nor do
    we have an X.400 to MIME conversion header routine. This is 'in the
    works', however, and due to overwhelming interest by our users and
    other prmd's, research and development are currently engaged in
    working on the issue. I do not have any information on when this
    will be available, but will let you know when I receive word of our
    MIME status.

--------------------------------

6.1.2) CompuServe

    [ Pat Farrell <[e-mail]> 31-Dec-1993 ]

    CompuServe's main mail service is ASCII text based, and is not MIME
    compliant. CompuServe provides robust, reliable mail transport of
    binary files. CompuServe invented and copyrighted the GIF format
    which is supported by MIME. There are commercial and freeware client
    programs for Macs and PCs that can provide "user friendly" access to
    CompuServe's text and binary mail services, display GIF files, and
    interact with CompuServe's forums. (CompuServe forums are roughly
    equivalent to USENET newsfeeds.)

--------------------------------

6.1.3) RadioMail

    [ Jerry Sweet <[e-mail]> 21-Mar-1994 ]

    RadioMail Corp. (formerly Anterior Technology) operates two types
    of e-mail services having these statuses with respect to MIME:

    1. cc:Mail/Internet gatewaying.  cc:Mail does permit binary
    attachments of various types, and these attachments are encoded by
    the gateway for transfer via SMTP, but the encoding is not presently
    MIME-compliant.  This may change.

    2. Wireless e-mail gatewaying.  Because the RadioMail gateway passes
    a limited set of headers, MIME messages per se do not traverse
    the gateway intact.  7-bit-encoded MIME messages may traverse the
    gateway if encapsulated, e.g. using RFC 934.  However, RadioMail
    does not presently supply MIME-compliant user agents for use on
    radio modem equipped MS-DOS and Macintosh computers.  This will
    change.

{ Should coordinate this with the global e-mail list that is posted to }
{ comp.mail.misc.                                                     }

--------------------------------

6.2) Local and regional providers

{ Any info?  Should coordinate this with e.g. the PDIAL list. }

--
End of Part 1
*************
--

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--
==========================================================
comp.mail.mime frequently asked questions list (FAQ) (2/3)
==========================================================
Part 2: MIME products
~~~~~~
--

Overview
--------
This is part 2 of a Frequently Asked Questions document about MIME, the
multipurpose and multi-media standard for Internet mail.

Part 1 covers frequently asked questions.

Part 2 is a listing of MIME products.

Part 3 covers advanced topics.
--

7) Freely available MIME software packages
------------------------------------------

This section lists MIME-capable or MIME-enabling libraries, conversion
tools, extension packages, mail user agents, and mail transport
systems.

Tools that are explicitly designed for handling MIME in USENET news
are discussed in section 9, although many of the packages in this
section also deal with USENET news.

--------------------------------

7.1) Libraries

Name:     c-client
Product:  MUA library code
Platform: Unix, Macintosh, MS-DOS, TOPS-20
Where:
Author:   Mark Crispin
Comments:

    [ comp.mail.misc FAQ ]

    Software writers only:

    c-client is a general library useful for creating MUA's.  It
    provides a Application Program Interface for retrieving and
    manipulating mail messages.  It supports the latest draft of
    MIME.  It is driver based, and easily ported to new platforms and
    MTAs.  The currently supported platforms include various versions
    of BSD and SysV Unix, MS-DOS, Macintosh and even TOPS-20(!).  It
    supports mailboxes in /usr/spool/mail, mbox, mail.txt, mh, carmel
    format, as well as remote mailbox access via the IMAP2 protocol
    described in RFC 1176 and extended by the IMAP2bis extensions.

    c-client does not contain any user interface.  Rather, it contains
    everything else that goes into an MUA.  c-client is called with
    such functions as mail_open(), mail_fetchheader(), mail_setflag(),
    etc.

    Just the thing if you want to write a new MUA.

    Contact the author (Mark Crispin <[e-mail]>) for more details.


Name:     mimelite
Product:  library
Platform: ANSI C
Where:    ftp://oslonett.no/Software/MsDos/Kommunikasjon/Offline/mimelt20.zip
Author:   Gisle Hannemyr <[e-mail]>
Comments:

    [ Gisle Hannemyr <[e-mail]> 20-May-1994 ]

    "mimelite" is a simple, lightweight library written in ANSI C that
    supports the parsing of MIME headers and encoding/decoding of body
    parts, suitable for inclusion in offline-readers.

    If you develop mail and newsreader software (user agents), you
    can link mimelite with your own program to make it support a
    significant subset of MIME (namely the Content-Transfer-Encodings
    7BIT, 8BIT, BASE64 and QUOTED-PRINTABLE).  mimelite also supports
    conversion between the ISO Latin 1 character set used for European
    character sets on USENET/Internet and PC-based character sets
    (e.g. Macintosh, IBM CP-437 and CP-850).

    The distribution archive also contains UNMIME, a standalone program
    to decode MIMEd messages encoded with BASE64 or QUOTED-PRINTABLE
    encoding.

    The mimelite library is general enough to work in a number of
    contexts, but it has been designed to work well on MS-DOS (where
    memory is a scarce resource).  Its main application is intended to
    help extend MS-DOS-based "offline-readers" for RFC-822 and RFC-1036
    conformant messages to also support RFC-1521 and RFC-1522.

--------------------------------

7.2) Conversion tools and extension packages

Name:     emil
Product:  tool
Platform: Unix
Where:    ftp://ftp.uu.se/pub/unix/networking/mail/emil/
Where:    ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/unix/mail/emil/
Author:   Martin Wendel <[e-mail]>
Comments:

    [ Martin Wendel <[e-mail]> 8-Apr-1994 ]

    Emil is a tool for converting between message formats used by
    MIME, Eudora, SUN mailtool, PC and Mac based clients, etc. It is
    easily extensible.  It can work either standalone, as an argument
    driven filter program, or, if linked with sendmail-5.67b+IDA-1.5
    or sendmail-8.6.8, as a mail gateway convertering messages sent
    between various types of Internet mail clients.  It will give
    a possibility to convert encoding formats of attachments and
    convert character sets of text.  It can make a heterogenous mail
    environment, consisting of various types of mail clients, act as
    a homogenous environment; for instance sending only MIME based
    messages to the outside world.


Name:     encdec
Product:  tool
Platform: ISO C
Where:    ftp://ftp.efd.lth.se/pub/mail/encdec.c.gz
Author:   Joergen Haegg <[e-mail]>
Comments:

encdec is a simple standalone encoder/decoder for base64 and quoted
printable written in ISO C.


Name:     exmh
Product:  MUA
Platform: UNIX
Where:    ftp://parcftp.xerox.com/pub/exmh/exmh-1.4.1.tar.Z
Where:    ftp://harbor.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/tcl/code/exmh-1.4.1.tar.gz
Author:
Contact:  "Brent Welch" <[e-mail]>
Comments:

    [ "Larry W. Virden" <[e-mail]> 13-Aug-1994 ]

    A Tk based UI to MH.  Supports nested folders, MIME/metamail.


Name:     metamail
Product:  MUA and tools
Platform: Unix Amiga MS-DOS
Where:    ftp://thumper.bellcore.com/pub/nsb/mm2.7.tar.Z
          The metamail distribution that Nathaniel Borenstein supports.
Where:    ftp://thumper.bellcore.com/pub/nsb/contrib2.7.tar.Z
          Contributed sources.
Where:    ftp://thumper.bellcore.com/pub/nsb/mm2.7.dos.zip
          MS-DOS binaries
Author:   Nathaniel Borenstein
Comments:

    [ Paul Eggert <[e-mail]> ]

    Metamail is a software implementation of MIME, designed for easy
    integration with traditional mail-reading interfaces -- typically,
    users do not invoke metamail directly.  Ideally, extending the
    local e-mail or news system to handle a new media format is a
    simple matter of adding a line to a mailcap file.  Mailcap files
    are described in RFC 1343.


Name:      MHonArc
Product:  HTML conversion tool
Platform: Unix
Where:    ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu:/pub/dtd2html/MHonArc1.0.0.tar.gz
Author:   Earl Hood <[e-mail]>

    [ Earl Hood <[e-mail]> 2-Oct-1994 ]

    MHonArc is a Perl program for converting e-mail messages as specified
    in RFC 822 and RFC 1521 (MIME) to HTML. MHonArc can perform the
    following tasks:

      * Convert mh(1) mail folders or mail(1) style mailboxes into an HTML
    mail archive.
      * Add new e-mail messages to an existing HTML mail archive generated
    by MHonArc.
      * Convert a single message to HTML.

    An index page is created when an archive is generated. MHonArc allows
    complete customization over the appearance of the index page including
    the ability to insert user defined HTML markup and content-type
    sensitive icons for the mail messages processed.

For details refer to http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/mhonarc.doc.html
The x-types handled by MHonArc are listed in section 3 of this FAQ.


Name:     MIME for VM/CMS
Product:
Platform: VM/CMS
Where:    gopher://ricevm1.rice.edu
Author:
Comments:

    [ Rick Troth <[e-mail]> 21-Jul-1993 ]

    This MIME decoder is available via Gopher from ricevm1.rice.edu
    under "Other freely distributable CMS software", which is under
    "CMS Gopher Software".

    It correctly reads:

        o text/plain,
        o text/richtext, and
        o image/gif.

    GIFs require the VMGIF package from Belgium.  I need filters for
    PBM and PGM and then they'd work too.  Sounds are not useful on
    the standard 3270 terminal (dumb terminals just don't play sounds).

    It splits out multipart/[anything] into separate files.  CMS has a
    standard directory "browser" (FILELIST) that lets you view a bunch
    of related files and decide what, if anything, you want to do with
    them.

    Message/external-body doesn't work well, but probably will given
    more development time.  I could use some samples to help with the
    debugging of that part.

    It does NOT do applications, except for the one, octet-stream.
    (which is treated as a kind-of "sendfile" utility) There *is* a
    PostScript interpreter for CMS, but it is reported to be a dog (we
    don't have it).  But I do hope to put the extraction code in for
    these eventually.

    If a given content-type isn't understood, you just view the item
    as-is.

    For composition, there's no CHARSET= parameter on the
    Content-Type: text/plain line.  It's EBCDIC until it gets into
    SMTP, then it's ASCII, then it might be anything, so I've left off
    the CHARSET= parameter.

    An "attach" command is added to RiceMAIL when you run this, which
    would then change the message from text/plain to multipart/mixed
    and append the attachment after a boundary.  Attachments don't
    "close" properly; that is, the final boundary isn't correct, but is
    correctly processed by all of the MIME compliant readers I've
    checked.  (there's some feature of RiceMAIL that causes this)

    This thing is based on CMS Pipelines, so adding features is easy
    since we now have the base for MIME processing.


Name:     MIME tools for GNU Emacs
Product:  MUA
Platform: Unix
Where:    ftp://wnoc-fuk.wide.ad.jp/pub/GNU/etc/emacs-mime-tools.shar
Author:   Masanobu UMEDA
Comments:

    [ Masanobu UMEDA <[e-mail]> 07-Aug-1993 ]

    MIME tools that consist of "mime.el", "rmailmime.el" and
    "metamail.el" are tools for reading and composition of MIME
    messages for GNU Emacs and its variants.  "mime.el" is a simple
    MIME message composer that works with mail mode, news mode, and
    mhe letter mode.  Messages of plain and richtext text, audio, and
    image, and multipart messages of them can be composed by using
    "mime.el".  "rmailmime.el" is for reading MIME messages within
    Rmail.  "metamail.el" is an interface to metamail.  The metamail
    package is required by these tools.


Name:     MIME tools for NeXT
Product:  editor
Platform: NeXT
Where:
Author:   Dave Lacey
Comments:

    [ Dave Lacey <[e-mail]> ]

    I'd like to keep you apprised of some MIME work I'm doing.  I'm
    interested in using MIME as a transport medium for multi-media
    gopher documents.  My particular use is for Radiology info, but it
    would work for just about anything.

    I've got a NeXT Gopher client almost working and I also have a
    NeXT based MIME file editor that reads/creates MIME documents.
    Both work, but need a bit more extension.  I will likely
    distribute the source to this, so the MIME reader (which is
    essentially an object) can be re-used in other apps.


Name:     mpack
Product:  MUA/utility
Platform: Unix, MS-DOS, Macintosh, Amiga
Where:    ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/mpack/mpack-1.4-src.tar.Z
          Sources for all versions
Where:    ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/mpack/mpack-1.4-pc.zip
          MS-DOS binaries
Where:    ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/mpack/mpack-1.4-mac.hqx
          Macintosh binary
Where:    ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/mpack/mpack-1.4-amiga.lha
          Amiga binaries
Author:   John Gardiner Myers, Chris Newman (Mac), Mike Meyer (Amiga)
Comments:

    [ John Gardiner Myers <[e-mail]> 1-Jun-1994 ]

    Mpack is a minimal implementation of MIME, designed for encoding and
    decoding binary files in MIME messages.  In short, it is the MIME
    equivalent of uuencode and uudecode.  For backwards compatibility,
    it can also decode messages in split-uuencoded format.  The Macintosh
    port can also handle AppleSingle, AppleDouble, and BinHex.


Name:     n2m
Product:  conversion tool
Platform: NeXT
Where:    ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/n2m.shar
Author:
Comments:

    [ Dave Collier-Brown <[e-mail]> 04-Jan-1993 ]

    Nn2m is a program that converts a file containing a NeXT-format
    multimedia message into a file containing a MIME-format multimedia
    message.

    It is usable on Berkeley-derived systems, or ones otherwise using
    /usr/lib/sendmail as a mail transfer agent. It is in use on SunOS
    4.1.1 and Ultrix 4.2, tested briefly on Aix 3.2 and NeXT.

    Description: it is used with non-NeXT mail user agents to convert
    NeXT mail to MIME, which is intelligible to more than just the NeXT
    mail program.  The resulting file will usually be more intelligible
    to non-multimedia mail user agents.

    The textual part of the mail is converted into text, as well as
    Microsoft RTF, and the attachments follow, as text/plain wherever
    possible, as base64 encoded binaries otherwise.  This suffices for
    messages with ASCII files pasted into them.

    Caveat:  This is a converter, not a translator: the conversion of
    sound and of the initial "index.rft" file is not correctness-
    preserving.


Name:     Safe-TCL (Enabled Mail)
Product:  extension package
Platform: UNIX
Where:    ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mrose/safe-tcl/safe-tcl.tar.Z
Where:      ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mrose/safe-tcl/safe-tcl-contrib.tar.Z
Author:   Marshall T. Rose
Contact:  [e-mail]
Comments:

    [ "Larry W. Virden" <[e-mail]> 13-Aug-1994 ]

    Incoming email processing tool based on Tcl.  Software also available
    which can build MIME messages and send them.  Incoming email
    processing includes ability to execute encapsulated Tcl programs at
    delivery or upon viewing.

    [ Jerry Sweet <[e-mail]> 5-Sep-1994 ]

    Papers about Enabled Mail and Safe-TCL are available from these
    sources:

    ftp://thumper.bellcore.com/pub/nsb/st/em-model.txt
    ftp://thumper.bellcore.com/pub/nsb/st/safe-tcl.ps
    ftp://thumper.bellcore.com/pub/nsb/st/safe-tcl.txt


Name:     sun-to-mime
Product:  conversion tool
Platform: OpenWindows
Where:    ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/MIME/sun-to-mime.perl
Where:    ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/MIME/sun-to-mime.c
Author:   Keith Moore
Comments:

    [ Keith Moore <[e-mail]> 27-Dec-1992 ]

    A perl script (and conversion to C of same) that converts
    OpenWindows mail to MIME.  Body parts currently supported are:
    text, gif, Sun rasterfile (converted to image/gif), postscript, and
    audio.  Other types default to application/octet-stream.  It's easy
    to extend the set of types supported and to add conversions, if
    necessary.

    The script requires uuencode, uudecode, zcat (aka uncompress),
    and the "convert" program from ImageMagick.  If you don't have
    ImageMagick you can probably substitute the pbm stuff with little
    fuss.


Name:     uu-to-mime
Product:  conversion tool
Platform: perl
Where:    ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/MIME/uu-to-mime.perl
Author:   Keith Moore <[e-mail]>
Comments:

A perl script that translates an RFC 822 message containing a single
uuencoded file to a MIME message containing a base64-encoded file.

--------------------------------

7.3) Mail user agents and transport systems

Name:     Andrew
Product:  Multimedia system
Platform: Unix
Where:
Author:
Comments:

    [ Susan Straub <[e-mail]> 11-Jan-1993 ]

    Andrew is a very large and ambitious software system developed at
    Carnegie Mellon University.  It is installed at hundreds of sites
    throughout the world, and includes a multimedia document editor,
    help system, and various other utilities.  In particular, it
    includes a feature-rich program, "messages", which can read and
    send mail and news articles in MIME format, including images,
    audio, richtext, and more.  Andrew is available in binary release
    for several Unix system architectures, and also in source form.
    Be warned that the source distribution is itself about 50
    megabytes, but you really are getting a LOT of stuff.  For
    information on how to obtain a copy of Andrew, send mail to
    [e-mail].


Name:     elm
Product:  MUA
Platform: Unix
Where:
Author:
Comments:

    [ Syd Weinstein <[e-mail]> 21-Dec-1992 ]

    Elm support for MIME:
    2.3 - uses metamail supplied patch from Nathaniel Borenstein.

    2.4:
        reading: detects MIME headers and calls metamail automatically
        if the message cannot be displayed on the current screen using
        the native capabilities of the display (recognizes some char
        sets as native)

        sending: detects [include ] markers and makes them MIME attachments.
        Still very 'crude', but its all we had time for, as to the
        release deadline of 'Elm' and MIME.

    3.x:
        reading: probably no change from 2.x, but will understand
        some 'file storage' types and allow for splitting off attachments
        on their own.

        sending: will allow defining attachments to be added and auto build
        the MIME stuff, in addition to the [include ] syntax.

    release status:
    2.3: obsolete
    2.4: Current PL is 23.
    3.x: not planned until some time in 1994.


Name:     Eudora 1.4.2
Product:  MUA
Platform: Macintosh MS-Windows
Where:    ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/eudora/windows/1.4/eudor142.exe
Where:      ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/eudora/mac/1.4/eudora142.hqx
Where:    ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/computing/systems/ibmpc/windows3/winsock/eudora14.exe
Author:   Steve Dorner <[e-mail]>
Author:   Jeff Beckley <[e-mail]> (Windows Version)
Comments:

Eudora 1.4 is a MUA for Macs and PCs that uses POP3 and SMTP and
supports MIME.  A commercial version is also available: see the next
section.


Name:     HUyMail
Product:  MTA/MUA
Platform: VMS
Where:    ftp://ftp.technion.ac.il/pub/unsupported/vms/local/local/huymail*.bck
Author:   Yehavi Bourvine
Comments:

    [ Yehavi Bourvine <[e-mail]> 22-Jul-1993 ]

    HUyMailer is a store and forward mailer for VAX/VMS and AXP/VMS
    systems which supports as transports: DECnet, Multinet/TcpIp,
    HUJI-NJE and PMDF.  The software is available freely for
    non-commercial use as a C source code.

    The mailer supports two users' interfaces: VMS/MAIL (to which the
    connection is done via MAIL11 DECnet connection) or a locally
    written interface called BMAIL.  BMAIL is a menu oriented interface
    which supports MIME and Hebrew.


Name:     Iride
Product:  MUA
Platform: Macintosh
Where:    ftp://gnbts.univ.trieste.it/mime/Iride.sea.hqx
Author:   GNBTS
Comments:

    [ From the README ]

    Iride is (or will be -- it's currently in beta test) an
    implementation of a MIME user agent on the Apple Macintosh
    computer.  It was developed as part of a project of the GNBTS -
    Gruppo Nazionale Bioingegneria sezione di Trieste, for the
    integration of multimedia mail with hospital data storing
    facilities, in particular for the transfer of bioimages.

    This is a far from a complete MIME implementation, but I think
    it is quite usable.

    To use it you need:
        o Macintosh with MacTCP 1.1 or better installed
        o 32 bit ColorQuickDraw if you want to use images
        o audio input device if you want to create audio messages
        o connection to a SMTP mail relay
        o connection to a POP3 server

    MIME types supported:

    text/plain              charset=US-ASCII only
    text/richtext           (no tool for composing richtext yet)

    audio/basic
    audio/X-macaudio        generated when a NOT sampled audio pasted in

    image/GIF
    image/X-macPICT         generated when color QuickDraw is missing only

    multipart/mixed         each part is shown in a different window
                            MUST change this
    multipart/parallel
    multipart/alternative   handled as multipart/mixed
                            MUST change this

Name:     mercurius
Product:  MUA
Platform:
Where:    ftp://ftp.lii.unitn.it/pub/mercurius/mercurius.tar.Z
Author:
Contact:  [e-mail]
Comments:

    [ "Larry W. Virden" <[e-mail]> 13-Aug-1994 ]

    Mercurius facilitates composing and reading multimedia electronic
    messages compliant with the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
    (MIME).


Name:        MEUF [Mail Extended Using Faces]
Product:    MUA
Platform:    Unix/X
Where:            ftp://ftp.inria.fr
Where:        ftp://ftp.enst.fr
Contact:    [e-mail]
Author:        Daniel Glazman
Comments:

    [ Daniel Glazman <[e-mail]> 23-Sep-1994 ]

    Meuf is a student project I developed at Ecole Nationale
    Superieure des Telecommunications de Paris with the System
    staff. It has grown A LOT to become a MIME-native MUA running
    under Xt/Xaw.

    Earlier non-MIME versions (1.3 and 1.4) are available by anonymous
    ftp from ftp.inria.fr and ftp.enst.fr.

    Currently developed version 3.0 will be released as a freely
    available product as soon as I'll get the authorization. Code has
    features:

    Pure MUA features:
        * Faces (48x48 XBM bitmaps) display using the X-Faces
          header field and included logos distribution
        * does not rely on "faces" package
        * folders (also with Faces display)
        * waste basket
        * messages sort by date, subject, length, ...
        * unlimited aliases
        * .face, .signature, .prologue, /usr/games/fortune handling
        * automagically deleted messages
        * References, Priority, Bcc, Return-Receipt-To handling
        * "Trusted Users" features
        * ignored header fields
        * online help
        * drag and drop for messages/folders management
        * interactive Face design
        * "Properties" windows

    MIME features:
        * does not rely on "metamail" package
        * full MIME composition and restitution for non-textual
          parts and text/plain
        * multiparts composition and restitution
        * basic text/richtext and text/enriched restitution
        * mailcap mechanism
        * Sun-Attachments parsing
        * MIME incorporation
        * MIME-clipboard (copy/paste of MIME parts between messages)
        * extraction of forwarded MIME-messages for MIME restitution
        * User's Guide (PS), Admin. Guide (PS)

    Successfully compiled and used with:
        Sun        SunOs 4.1.x and Solaris 2.x
        HP 9000/7xx    HP-UX > 9.01
        DECstation    Ultrix
        IBM RS6000    AIX > 3.2.4
        Convex

    More information at http://lara0.exp.edf.fr/glazman/meuf.html
    Availability will be announced in comp.mail.mime newsgroup.



Name:     MH 6.8
Product:  MUA
Platform: Unix
Where:    ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/mh/mh-6.8.tar.Z
Where:    ftp://louie.udel.edu/portal/mh-6.8.tar.Z
Author:
Comments:

MIME support is available for the MH message handling system; the
primary reader and generator is the program mhn(1) although other MH
programs are also changed.  The current release of MH is 6.8, the first
to include MIME support when appropriately installed.  mhn does not
use the mailcap mechanism described in RFC 1343.

A tutorial for mhn is available:

Where:    ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mh/contrib/multimedia/mhn-tutorial.tex
      ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mh/contrib/multimedia/mhn-tutorial.sty
      ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mh/contrib/multimedia/mhn-tutorial.ps

See the newsgroup comp.mail.mh for further information.


Name:     MIXMH
Product:  MUA
Platform: Unix with X
Where:    ftp://aun.uninett.no/pub/mail/mixmh/mixmh-0.3.tar.Z
Author:
Comments:

    [ Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[e-mail]> 10-Dec-1992 ]

    This version is based on XMH version 1.6 from SEI, Carnegie Mellon.
    It supports sending MIME with extended character sets in the headers
    (per RFC 1342) and the body (per RFC 1341 text/plain).  It has
    limited support for multipart messages.

    The source is freely redistributable and modifiable.

    As you can see from the version number, it is still not considered
    fully stable. Bugs may be reported to [e-mail]
    Information and discussion will take place on [e-mail];
    mail to [e-mail] to join.


Name:     Pegasus mail
Product:  MUA
Platform: MS-DOS, MS-Windows, Macintosh
Where:    ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/pegasus/*
Author:   David Harris <[e-mail]>
Comments:

    [ James Ford <[e-mail]> 2-Nov-1993 ]

    Pegasus Mail is an E-Mail package for Novell network v2.15 and higher
    that supports MHS (natively) and SMTP.  The MS-DOS version (v3.01a)
    is MIME compliant; the MS-Windows version should be by mid-November.
    I do not know the timetable for the Mac version.  You can either
    get a PC-based SMTP gateway for it (Charon, by Brad Clements) or a
    (Netware v3.11) NLM-based version (Mercury, by David Harris) from
    risc.ua.edu.  I believe that the SMTP gateway Mercury supports 8-bit
    MIME encoding.


Name:     Pine
Product:  MUA
Platform: Unix
Where:    ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/pine/pine.tar.Z
Author:   Laurence Lundblade, Michael Seibel, Mark Crispin
Comments:

    [ From the release notes 21-Sep-1993 ]

    Pine(tm) --a Program for Internet News & E-Mail-- is a tool for
    reading, sending, and managing electronic messages.  It was designed
    specifically with novice computer users in mind, but can be tailored
    to accommodate the needs of "power users" as well.  Pine uses
    Internet message protocols (e.g. RFC-822, SMTP, MIME, IMAP, NNTP)
    and runs on Unix and MS-DOS.

    The guiding principles for Pine's user-interface were: careful
    limitation of features, one-character mnemonic commands,
    always-present command menus, immediate user feedback, and high
    tolerance for user mistakes. It is intended that Pine can be learned
    by exploration rather than reading manuals.  Feedback from the
    University of Washington community and a growing number of Internet
    sites has been encouraging.

    Pine's message composition editor, Pico, is also available as a
    separate stand-alone program.  Pico is a very simple and easy-to-use
    text editor offering paragraph justification, cut/paste, and a
    spelling checker.

    [ David L Miller <[e-mail]> 31-Aug-1994 ]

    For more information, see http://www.cac.washington.edu/pine/


Name:     Tkmailto
Product:  MUA
Platform: UNIX
Where:    ftp://harbor.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/tcl/code/tkmailto-1.0.tar.gz
Author:
Contact:  "Johan Lindbladh" <[e-mail]>
Comments:

    [ "Larry W. Virden" <[e-mail]>, 13-Aug-1994 ]

    Alpha version Tk-based mail composer which supports MIME.  Requires
    Safe-Tcl 1.1.

--

8) Commercial MIME software packages
------------------------------------

Name:     Echelon
Product:  MUA
Platform: NEXTSTEP
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   Doug Boyce <[e-mail]>
Comments:

Echelon is a MUA for NEXTSTEP that can decode, display, and compose both
NeXTmail and MIME.  Most MIME types are supported.  A demo version is
available from

Where:    ftp://nova.cc.purdue.edu/pub/next/submissions/Echelon_1.12.tar.gz


Name:     ECSMail
Product:  MUA/MTA
Platform: Unix, NT, OS/2, OpenVMS, MS-DOS, MS-Windows, Mac System 7
Contact:  ECS Sales <[e-mail]>
Phone:    [phone]
Author:
Comments:

    [ Steve Hole <[e-mail]> 24-Aug-1993 ]

    ECSMail is an electronic mail product for building enterprise mail
    systems.  It is designed from start to finish as a system for
    establishing mail services throughout an organization, with external
    organizations and the world information system in general.  It does
    this by using a completely standards based architecture.

    ECSMail is comprised of the following system components:

     ECSMail MUA Set      - a set of Mail User Agents (MUA)
     ECSMail MTA Set      - a set of Message Transport Agents (MTA)
     ECSMail MS Set       - a set of Message Services (MS)

    All components support both MIME/822 and X.400, and run under
    Unix, Microsoft NT, OS/2, OpenVMS.  Additionally, the MUA Set runs
    under MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, and Mac System 7.

    Pricing for the ECS products and ISA business information can be
    obtained by contacting:

     ECS Sales
     835 10040 - 104 Street
     Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
     T5J 0Z2

     Phone: [phone]
     Fax:   [phone]

    or by sending a request through electronic mail to the address:

     ECS Sales <[e-mail]>


Name:     Eudora 2.0.2
Product:  MUA
Platform: Macintosh
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   Steve Dorner <[e-mail]>
Author:   Jeff Beckley <[e-mail]> (Windows Version)
Comments:

Commercial versions of Eudora with more features than the freely
available ones.

Information about the commercial versions of Eudora can be found at:

ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com:/quest/eudora/windows/Eudor2Info-*.exe
ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com:/quest/eudora/mac/Eudora2Info-*.sea.hqx


Name:     IBM multimedia mail
Product:
Platform: OS/2
Contact:  Jerry Cuomo <[e-mail]>
Author:   IBM
Comments:

    [ Larry Salomon Jr <[e-mail]> 10-Dec-1992 ]

    I'm not going to follow this group, but I wanted to state that IBM -
    at the T.J. Watson Research Center - is developing a multimedia mail
    application for OS/2 which is based on the Mime spec.  They demoed
    it at Interop.

    For more information, including (probably) how to become a test site
    (I haven't confirmed whether they're actually going to do this,
    but they've done it before), contact the department manager, Jerry
    Cuomo, at [e-mail].


Name:     iGate
Product:  WordPerfect Office gateway
Platform:
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   Smart Systems
Comments:

    [ Quentin Smart <[e-mail]> 25-Sep-1993 ]

    iGate provides seamless connectivity to SMTP mail from WordPerfect
    office.  Running as a native gateway under the Office Connection
    server and incorporting a TCP/IP stack iGate is a complete solution
    with no extras like MHS or TCP/IP stacks required.

    Further information from:

        Smart Systems
        PO Box 5017
        Wellington, New Zealand
        [phone]
        [e-mail]


Name:     Internet Exchange for cc:Mail
Product:  cc:Mail to SMTP/MIME Internet Mail Gateway
Platform: MS-Windows
Contact:
Phone:    [phone]
Author:   International Messaging Associates
Comments:

    [ Tim Kehres <[e-mail]> 08-Dec-1993 ]

    For cc:Mail users, Internet Exchange is the gateway of choice to
    provide standardized full multimedia connectivity between cc:Mail
    users and their Internet partners.  Internet Exchange for cc:Mail
    can be used to interconnect cc:Mail networks with external users on
    the Internet as well as connecting your own internal network to your
    cc:Mail community.

    Internet Exchange for cc:Mail is the first SMTP to cc:Mail gateway
    that suports the full MIME Internet standard for exchanging rich
    media multipart messages.  This means that your cc:Mail users can
    now exchange any attachment types with Internet based mail systems.
    By using the MIME standard, Internet Exchange for cc:Mail users
    will be assured future compatibility with other MIME compliant mail
    gateways.

    To simplify administration and management, the Internet Exchange
    System Manager runs under Windows 3.1.  On screen buttons provide
    administration access into the gateway operations.  Managers can
    easily view and modify all gateway activity.  Message routing is
    accomplished using any combination of host tables,Domain Name System
    (DNS) lookup, and default mail host routing.


Name:     Ishmail
Product:  MUA
Platform: SunOS, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and UnixWare
Contact:  [e-mail]
Phone:    [phone] or [phone]
Where:    ftp://ftp.halsoft.com
Pricing:  $99 U.S. for single user. Multi-user/site license discounts.
Author:   HaL Software Systems
Comments:

    [ Frank Bieser <[e-mail]> 21-Jun-1994 ]

    Ishmail is a MIME-capable e-mail tool with a Motif graphical user
    interface. Ishmail includes the following features:

    - Full support of MIME data types: plain text, rich text, GIF,
      JPEG, U-LAW audio, MPEG, binary, PostScript, ODA, RFC822 mail
      message, plus user-defined extensions.

    - Message attachments supported via: local file, AFS, mail server,
      regular FTP, anonymous FTP, and TFTP.

    - Support for composing, viewing, and printing rich text messages.

    - Easily customized through GUI dialogs for fonts, definition and
      placement of custom buttons, message list sorting and format, etc.

    - Variety of user interaction methods, ranging from "drag and drop"
      and custom buttons to keyboard shortcuts.

    - Support for use of, modification, and addition of sendmail-style
      mail aliases.

    - User defined alert commands and icons, triggered by matching
      patterns in incoming mail headers.

    - On-line help cards, including context sensitive help.

    - Full end-user manual provided in PostScript format.

    - Complete hypertext version of end-user manual available via World Wide
      Web at <http://www.hal.com/products/sw/ishmail/user-guide.html>

    HaL Software Systems
    3006 Longhorn Blvd #A-113
    Austin, TX 78758-7631


Name:     Mail*Hub
Product:
Platform: Control Data 4000 Series Mips-based Unix systems
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   Control Data Systems
Comments:

    [ <[e-mail]> 23-Dec-1992 ]

    Mail*Hub includes support for X.400, X.500, SMTP, and creating,
    viewing, and sending MIME enclosures in mail. In addition, the Fax
    Gateway portion of Mail*Hub supports sending mail with MIME
    enclosures to a Fax machine.  Graphical MIME components
    (Postscript, GIF, TIFF,...)  are automatically recognized and
    imaged at the receiving Fax machine.


Name:        MAIL-IT
Product:      MUA
Platform:    MS Windows 3.x
Contact:    [e-mail]
Phone:        [phone]
        ([phone]
Author:         Unipalm Ltd.
Comments:

    [ Maria Porto <[e-mail]>, 7-Jul-1994 ]

    MAIL-IT is a Winsock-compatible SMTP/POP mail client with MIME
    functionality.  By implementing Microsoft's Extended MAPI
    architecture, MAIL-IT allows mail to be sent from directly within
    MAPI-enabled applications such as Word for Windows, Excel,
    WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and Ami Pro, thus Internet-enabling the
    user's desktop.

    MAIL-IT benefits include:

    -  support for MIME
    -  implementation of Microsoft's MAPI architecture
    -  full drag and drop
    -  hierarchical foldering
    -  uses SMTP for sending, and POP2 or POP3 for receiving mail
    -  local address book

    There is a 30-day demo copy available for anonymous ftp:
    ftp://pipe.pipex.net/xtech/mail-it/mie202.zip
    Please contact us for the decrypting password.


Name:     Mail*Link SMTP for QuickMail, Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk, and
          PowerShare
Product:  Macintosh Mail systems to SMTP/MIME gateways
Platform: Macintosh
Contact:  [e-mail]
Phone:    [phone]
Author:   StarNine Technologies, Inc.
Comments:

    [David Thompson <[e-mail]> 19-Sept-1994 ]

    Mail*Link SMTP 3.0 is the industry-standard for connecting
    Macintosh mail systems to each other, as well as PC, UNIX and
    host-based mail systems on corporate LANs and the Internet.  The
    Mail*Link family of gateways now provides MIME support for all
    major Macintosh LAN messaging systems including QuickMail,
    Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk and PowerShare Collaboration servers.

    Per-destination processing of messages in version 3.0 allows
    gateway administrators to configure translation and enclosure
    handling methods for outgoing messages addressed to a specific
    SMTP address, domain, or host.  The gateway ships with three
    preprogrammed translation methods for sending messages to users on
    PCs, UNIX, and MIME-capable systems.

    Mail*Link SMTP uses the proposed MacMIME standard to allow more
    flexibility when receiving messages with MIME-encoded Macintosh
    files.  An option to encode an attachment's datafork only with
    MIME greatly increases compatibility with non-Macintosh MIME
    systems.  Other enclosure handling options include
    MacBinary-UUENCODE, AppleSingle-UUENCODE, BinHex 4.0, and
    Datafork-only-UUENCODE, and StuffIt compression.


Name:     Mail*Link Internet for PowerTalk
Product:  PowerTalk to SMTP/MIME Internet Mail Gateway
Platform: Macintosh System 7.5
Contact:  [e-mail]
Phone:    [phone]
Author:   StarNine Technologies, Inc.
Comments:

    [David Thompson <[e-mail]> 19-Sept-1994 ]

    Mail*Link Internet for PowerTalk is a personal gateway that allows
    System 7.5 users in SMTP/POP3 environments to exchange messages
    with Internet mail users.

    Version 1.0 supports System 7.5 and System 7 Pro Macintoshes with
    MacTCP (included) on a local area network.  It uses the standard
    Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and Post Office Protocol
    (POP3) for sending and reading mail within the LAN.  If the LAN is
    connected to the Internet, PowerTalk users can also exchange
    messages with external Internet users.  Version 1.5, due out in
    September, 1994 will support SLIP or PPP connections.

    Incoming Internet messages are placed in the PowerTalk universal
    mailbox on the desktop.  Users can send Internet messages from
    within their preferred PowerTalk-savvy application such as
    WordPerfect, ClarisWorks, or the Finder.  The gateway supports
    standard Macintosh file enclosure handling methods including
    AppleSingle-UUEncode, Datafork only-UUENCODE, MacBinary, and
    BinHex, as well as MIME.

    A 60-day trial version of the gateway is available on StarNine's
    anonymous FTP server (ftp://ftp.starnine.com/pub/evals/pt-inet)
    as well as on the CD-ROM version of Apple's System 7.5 product
    (look in the CD Extras folder).


Name:     MPOWER
Product:
Platform:
Contact:
Author:   HP
Comments:

    [ Harald Alvestrand <[e-mail]> 22-Jan-1993 ]

    If anyone is interested, the new multimedia product from HP called
    MPOWER supports MIME format mail.

    You can drag and drop a picture onto the mail icon, and it will be
    sent as a MIME message.

    (Unfortunately, they forgot to quote the delimiter that had a dot in
    it, and PINE failed to parse that......well, it's a betatest.)


Name:       NetMail/3000
Product:   SMTP/MIME compatible electronic mail system for HP3000s
Platform:  HP3000 MPE/V, HP3000 MPE/iX
Contact:   [e-mail] (Solution Centers International)
Telephone: (US) 800 Net-Mail (UK)[phone] (Other) [phone]
Fax:       (US) 916 622-0738 (UK) [phone] (Other) [phone]
Author:    3k Associates ([e-mail])
Comments:

    [ Chris Bartram <[e-mail]> 3-Jun-1994 ]

    NetMail/3000 is a full featured electronic mail system for HP3000
    computer systems which was designed as an SMTP and MIME compatible
    network mail system.  NetMail/3000 provides a user interface
    compatible with "dumb" terminals, but also has hooks to identify and
    utilize features of HP terminals and PC or Mac based HP terminal
    emulator packages. Users can send messages (8-bit character sets are
    supported) and attach any number of files (host or pc based) to their
    messages (PC/Mac based files are automatically retrieved and loaded),
    and all messages (and attachments) are exported in MIME format, though
    users can specify that files be encoded via 'uuencode' or 'binhex' if
    necessary to be readable by non-MIME compatible mail systems).

    NetMail/3000's user interface is also unique in that Windows-based
    terminal emulator users can allow NetMail/3000 to automatically
    extract and pass any message parts (not displayable in the terminal
    emulator) directly to their PC and have the appropriate application
    launched to view the file. (NetMail/3000 interrogates the PC on
    startup to determine the file types "associated" with applications.)

    NetMail/3000 also includes directory synchronization capability
    (compatible with Lotus' cc:Mail ADE format), a POP2 server, a
    quote-of-the-day and daytime server, and will soon be offering a
    HP3000-based gopher server. NetMail/3000 is priced independent of cpu
    size/speed/number of users, and includes network capability in the
    base product. 3k Associates is also an HP Channel Partner.


Name:       NetMail/3000 HPDesk FSC Gateway
Product:   SMTP/MIME compatible gateway for HPDesk users
Platform:  HP3000 MPE/V, HP3000 MPE/iX
Contact:   [e-mail] (Solution Centers International)
Telephone: (US) 800 Net-Mail (UK)[phone] (Other) [phone]
Fax:       (US) 916 622-0738 (UK) [phone] (Other) [phone]
Author:    3k Associates ([e-mail])
Comments:

    [ Chris Bartram <[e-mail]> 3-Jun-1994 ]

    The NetMail/3000 HPDesk FSC Gateway provides a bi-directional gateway
    between HPDesk mail users and the SMTP/MIME world. Any number of
    message attachments per message are supported; incoming messages are
    broken down into files on the HP3000 for HPDesk users and appear as
    normal message attachments, outgoing attachments are encoded as
    MIME-compatible message attachments (or optionally just as UUENCODED
    binary attachments for compatibility with non-MIME compatible
    mailers).

    The gateway operates in real-time, is a background process on the
    HP3000 (which is interrupt driven and uses minimal system resources),
    and requires no special hardware or additional software. The product
    is priced independent of platform size or type or number of users.
    Free 45 day demos are available.


Name:     PC-MM (PC Mail Manager)
Product:  MUA
Platform: MS-Windows
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   ICL
Comments:

    [ Tomas Kullman <[e-mail]> 30-Sep-1993 ]

    PC-MM from ICL is a Mail User Agent for Windows 3.1 implemented on
    Windows Socket API and TCP/IP. PC-MM is currently working on PC-NFS
    but is designed to be network software independent (i.e. will work
    on most TCP/IP softwares supporting WinSocket API).

    PC-MM is a MIME conformant internet mailer supporting SMTP and IMAP2
    for sending and receiving. PC-MM requires a UNIX mail server (or
    similar supporting SMTP and IMAP2).

    PC-MM V1.0 supports a lot of nice features, such as:
         - user friendly interface
         - built-in and user-defined text editor
         - drag and drop between folders
         - local and server based folders
         - integrated address book
         - message sorting and tagging
         - "watch dog" for incoming messages

    PC Mail Manager is announced and volume shipping mid November 1993.

    For pricing and product packaging information please contact Lars
    Hagberg at ICL ProSystems AB; E-mail: [e-mail] or
    phone: + 46 (0)13 11 70 00.


Name:     PMDF
Product:  MTA
Platform: VMS
Contact:  [e-mail] [e-mail]
Author:   Innosoft International
Comments:

The VMSNET newsgroup 'vmsnet.mail.pmdf' is available for discussion.

    [ Ned Freed <[e-mail]> ]

    Send technical inquiries to [e-mail]. Product
    information, pricing, and literature can be obtained from
    [e-mail]. The phone number is [phone]; FAX is
    [phone]. Street address is:

        Innosoft International, Inc.
        250 W. First St., Suite 240
        Claremont, CA 91711


Name:     PP
Product:  MTA
Platform: UNIX
Contact:  [e-mail] (commercial version)

    [ "Harald T. Alvestrand" <[e-mail]> 22-Aug-94 ]

    PP is an X.400 and SMTP mailer, and a gateway between these, so
    you can communicate with "both worlds".

    The latest and greatest version is the ISODE Consortium release,
    IC-R1, but this is no longer free. However, it is not expensive,
    either.  The ISODE Consortium offers the source code to all
    Consortium members, and gives the right to sell products based on
    the code to commercial members.

    The PP included in Isode Consortium Release 1 (IC-R1) includes:

    - Conformance tested X.400/84, running over most stacks you care
          to name
    - X.400/88
    - X.400 (84 and 88) to SMTP gateways (RFC 1327 compliant)
    - SMTP, DECNET and UUCP support
    - P3File (Retix-like) message submission and delivery
    - Routing using X.500 (experimental)
    - MIME gatewaying support (MIME-MHS/HARPOON compliant)
    - SNMP monitoring
    - X.500 and file based distribution lists
    - Fax gateway supporting Panasonic, Fujitsu and Class 2 fax modems


Name:     SMTPLINK 2.1
Product:
Platform:
Contact:
Author:
Comments:

    [ <[e-mail]> 16-Dec-1992 ]

    Because this version (2.1) is a 2-3 QTR-93 release you should be
    talking to your sales rep about the tentative features of this
    product. They can be reached at 800-448-2500.


Name:     STI Document Browser
Product:  MS-Windows 3.1 (shipping), NeXTstep/X11/VMS (in the pipeline)
Platform:
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   Stream Technologies Inc
Comments:

    [ Ed Anselmo <[e-mail]> 31-Dec-1992 ]

    Product name:   STI Document Browser
    Platforms:

    How and where to get:
        Stream Technologies Inc.
        Valkjarventie 2
        SF-02130 Espoo
        FINLAND
        Tel: [phone]
        Fax: [phone]
        E-Mail: [e-mail]


Name:     Super-TCP
Product:
Platform: MS-Windows
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   Frontier Technologies
Comments:

    [ Ray C Langford <[e-mail]> 28-Apr-1993 ]

    Frontier Technologies' Super-TCP for MS-Windows includes MIME
    support in their E-Mail mail system that is a part of the Super-TCP
    for Windows package.

    Super-TCP for Windows is a Windows Sockets compliant, 100% DLL
    implementation that can also operate in a TSR mode. Applications
    include: Network News Reader, Telnet, FTP Client/Server, NFS
    Client/Server, SMTP/POP2&3 MIME E-Mail, Telnet Redirector,
    Interactive Talk, and more. Options are also available for PPP,
    X.25, and OSI.

    With the MIME support in E-Mail, any type of binary file may be
    attached to your message, including Postscript files, spreadsheet
    files, database files, word processor files, graphic files, audio
    files, and digital video files.

    The packages in the Super-TCP product line that include the
    E-Mail (SMTP/POP2&3) with MIME support are:
        - Super-TCP for Windows   Version 3.0
                (Complete TCP/IP package)
        - Super-TCP/NFS for Windows   Version 3.0
                (Complete TCP/IP package with NFS client/server)
        - Super-TCP Applications for Windows   Version 3.0
                (Windows Sockets applications only)

    For further information, e-mail [e-mail] or call
    [phone].


Name:     TCP/Connect II version 2.0
Product:  MUA, news reader
Platform: Macintosh
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   InterCon Systems Corporation
Comments:

    [ Amanda Walker <[e-mail]>  6-Sep-1994 ]

    Full support for MIME in email, viewing support for MIME in news.
    Includes inline composition and display of the following MIME
    content types:

        text/plain      image/gif         video/quicktime
        text/richtext   image/jpeg        audio/basic
        text/enriched   image/x-macpict

        application/applefile
        application/x-macbinhex40

        multipart/mixed

        character sets: US-ASCII, ISO-8859-1

    Provides drag & drop support for file enclosures, automatic
    encoding and decoding of AppleSingle/AppleDouble ("MacMIME") body
    parts, as well as BinHex & uuencode for backward compatibility.
    Runs native on Power Macintosh computers.

    For more information please contact:

        InterCon Systems Corporation
        950 Herndon Parkway
        Herndon, VA 22070  USA

        [phone]   (voice)
        [phone]   (fax)
        [e-mail]  (Internet email)


Name:     Z-Mail
Product:  MUA
Platform: Unix
Contact:  [e-mail]
Author:   Z-Code Software Corporation
Comments:

    [ Carlyn M. Lowery <[e-mail]> 29-May-1993 ]

    Z-Mail, a Unix World Magazine "Product of the Year" winner for 1991,
    is a complete electronic mail system for workstations.  Z-Mail
    provides Motif and Open Look graphical user interfaces, as well
    as two character modes.  The software has been ported to nearly
    every system that runs Unix, and it works with all standard Unix
    mail transport agents including sendmail, binmail, smail, MMDF and
    X.400 gateways.  Z-Mail can replace or coexist with standard mail
    user agents on the system, including BSD Mail, AT&T mailx, Sun Mail
    Tool, Elm, or Mush.  Most anyone can use Z-Mail "off the shelf" and
    immediately benefit from its simple interface and advanced features.

    Z-Mail also includes Z-Script, a powerful scripting language that
    enables users to customize and extend Z-Mail's capabilities.
    Z-Mail's multi-media capabilities allow easy integration with
    best-of-class products including spreadsheets, desk-top publishing,
    graphics, fax, voice, and video. For example, when users receive a
    spreadsheet file, Z-Mail can be configured to automatically launch
    the associated application and load the the attachment automatically
    and transparently to the user.  Z-Mail understands MIME-format
    documents and is also compatible with Sun's multimedia Mailtool.

    Mac, MS-DOS, and MS-Windows versions, as well as native MIME
    support, are planned for this summer.

    For more information on Z-Mail, contact:
        Z-Code Software Corp.
        4340 Redwood Hwy., Suite B-50
        San Rafael, CA 94903
        tel: [phone]
        fax: [phone]
        e-mail: [e-mail]

    Also, you can anonymous-ftp a demo copy of Z-Mail from
    ftp://ora.com/pub/z-code/zmail/2.1/
    (The file you want is named zm.XXX.tar.Z, where XXX is
    your type of machine.)  You'll need to call us after you do so we
    can send you an activation key.

--

9) MIME and USENET news
-----------------------

9.1) Introduction

USENET articles are (by design) very similar to RFC 822 mail messages.
It is therefore reasonable to expect MIME software to be adopted for use
on USENET.

A number of the mail user agents and tools discussed in section 7 also
handle USENET news.

--------------------------------

9.2) News readers and transports with MIME support

Name:     GNUS
Product:  reader
Platform: GNU Emacs
Where:
Author:   Masanobu UMEDA
Comments:

    [ Masanobu UMEDA <[e-mail]> 07-Aug-1993 ]

    GNUS is an NNTP-based newsreader for GNU Emacs.  GNUS versions
    3.14.4 and later directly support reading of articles written in
    MIME format.  It only requires the metamail package.  Compositions
    of articles written in MIME format requires "mime.el" that is a
    part of MIME tools for GNU Emacs (see section 7.2).


Name:     gnus-mime.el
Product:  reaJoe Ilacqua der
Platform: GNU Emacs
Where:    ftp://world.std.com/dist/gnus-mime.el.shar
          (also in the contrib tree of metamail)
Author:   Joe Ilacqua
Comments:

    [ Joe Ilacqua <[e-mail]> 24-Jun-1993 ]

    "gnus-mime.el" is an ELISP package that adds support for MIME to
    GNUS.  This is the second release: I consider it very beta, and I'm
    sure there are bugs, but it does work.  It provides support both to
    read and to post USENET articles in MIME format.  It's scarcest
    feature is support for multi-part multi-media ".signatures".

I believe that gnus-mime.el is for GNUS prior to version 3.14.4.


Name:     INN
Product:  transport
Platform:
Where:
Author:
Comments:

    [ Christopher Davis <[e-mail]> 03-Jun-1993 ]

    There is some minimal MIME support in the INN package.  Since INN
    is a transport system, not a newsreader, the support is for
    transferring MIME messages, not reading them.

    [ Christophe Wolfhugel <[e-mail]> 23-Jul-1993 ]

    INN's MIME support is today divided in two parts:

    1) the possibility to have nnrpd add default MIME headers to
    locally posted articles;

    2) transfer-encoding changes on transport with "innxmit", i.e. recode
    8bit to quoted-printable.


Name:     MH
Product:  reader
Platform:
Where:    See section 7 for MH's FTP sites.
Author:
Comments:

    [ John Romine <[e-mail]> 30-Jul-1993 ]

    If you compile MH to use NNTP, it can read news with its "bbc"
    command; MH supports MIME.


Name:      mhunify (aka stacknews)
Product:  reader
Platform: UNIX
Where:      ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mh/contrib/multimedia/mhunify.shar.gz
Author:   Jerry Sweet <[e-mail]>
Comments:

    [ Jerry Sweet <[e-mail]> 11-Aug-1994 ]

    Mhunify is a set of perl scripts and templates that provides
    shell-level MH functionality with USENET news.  Since MH supports
    MIME, MIME-format news articles just work.  I've found that being
    able to handle news in the same way that I handle e-mail is very
    useful, although there are some tradeoffs: no kill files, no
    threads, at least for now.

    Mhunify also treats MH folders just like news groups.  If you
    subscribe to several mailing lists, and your e-mail is
    automatically delivered to separate folders, say, via procmail
    or via MMDF's .maildelivery, the mhunify package lets you progress
    automatically through your folders just as you would news groups.

    Requirements:
          - csh or some shell with shell-level alias or procedure
            facilities;
          - perl 4.0 or later;
          - MH 6.8 or later;
          - direct file system access to the USENET news spool
            directory (typically /usr/spool/news - as a local or NFS
            mounted file system).

    Some of the goodies:

        stacknews     - read USENET news using shell-level MH.
        ncomp, nrepl, nforw
                      - compose, reply to, and forward to USENET
                              news groups (these use nwhatnow).
        nwhatnow      - post USENET articles & send e-mail from
                              the same draft.
        consider      - creates a folder, +consider  by  default,
                              containing specified messages.
        bburst        - bursts digests into a writeable folder,
                              +consider by default.
        clearf        - clears the MH folder stack.
        mhpped        - utility composition template pre-processor.
        pscan         - scan messages from point of previous scan.

        Plus man pages, templates, example configuration files,
        other utility programs, and a Makefile to install everything.


Name:     nn
Product:  reader
Platform:
Where:
Author:
Comments:

    [ Luc Rooijakkers <[e-mail]> 26-Jul-1993 ]

    The current beta release of nn tags newly posted articles as
    text/plain; charset=xxx with transfer encoding 8bit if the message
    contains any 8 bit characters.

    Reading support needs further work.


Name:     SNews
Product:  reader
Platform: MS-DOS OS/2
Where:    ftp://ftp.wimsey.com/~ftp/pub/msdos/uupc/snews191.zip
          MS-DOS binaries
Where:    ftp://ftp.wimsey.com/~ftp/pub/msdos/uupc/snws191o.zip
          OS/2 binaries
Where:    ftp://ftp.wimsey.com/~ftp/pub/msdos/uupc/snws191s.zip
          Source
Author:
Comments:

    [ Daniel Fandrich <[e-mail]> 27-Aug-1993 ]

    Revision 1.91 of the SNews newsreader for MS-DOS systems
    fixes several bugs in version 1.90 (alpha), as well as adding
    some much-needed features, including built-in support for ISO
    8859/1/2/3/4/9 character sets (RFC 1521 and RFC 1522) and a single
    key interface to the metamail MIME decoder (or other user-specified
    program).  An additional bonus is the availability of an OS/2
    version.


Name:     strn
Product:  reader
Platform: UNIX
Where:    ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/readers/trn/strn/strn092.tar.gz
Author:   Clifford A Adams <[e-mail]>
Comments:

Strn has support for reading and creating MIME articles.


Name:     trn
Product:  reader
Platform: UNIX
Where:    ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/readers/trn/trn.tar.gz
Author:   Wayne Davison <[e-mail]>
Comments:

trn 3.0 has support for reading MIME articles with metamail, and
creating them with mhn.

--
End of Part 2
*************
--

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Path: fnnews.fnal.gov!overload.lbl.gov!agate!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!mvb.saic.com!news.cerf.net!shrike.irvine.com!jsweet
From: [e-mail] (MIME FAQ maintainer)
Subject: comp.mail.mime frequently asked questions list (FAQ) (3/3)
Content-Type: message/partial; number=3; total=3; id="<[e-mail]>"
References: <[e-mail]>
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Supersedes: <[e-mail]>
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Summary: This posting contains answers to some of the Frequently Asked
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    Please read it before posting a question to comp.mail.mime.
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Posting-Frequency: monthly


--
==========================================================
comp.mail.mime frequently asked questions list (FAQ) (3/3)
==========================================================
Part 3: Advanced Topics
~~~~~~
--

Overview
--------
This is part 3 of a Frequently Asked Questions document about MIME,
the multipurpose and multi-media standard for Internet mail.

Part 1 covers frequently asked questions.

Part 2 is a listing of MIME products.

Part 3 covers advanced topics.
--

10) Information
---------------

10.1) MIME-relevant RFCs and other standards

The RFCs mentioned here are mainly relevant to persons building MIME
software.  As an end user, if your mail system is nice to you, you
won't really have to know very much about these things.

RFC and Internet-Drafts are available by anonymous FTP from any decent
archive site.  If you're really stuck, try these URLs:

ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/
ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/

MIME is defined in RFC 1521 (MIME Mechanisms for Specifying and
Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies) and RFC 1522
(Representation of Non-ASCII Text in Internet Message Headers).

These are Internet standards-track protocols.  For the full
implications of this, see RFC 1540 (IAB Official Protocol Standards).
Here is their current status.

    RFC 1521: Draft Elective Standard
    RFC 1522: Draft Elective Standard

These two RFCs do not fully define MIME.  For one thing, they are
based on RFC 822 (Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text
messages), as revised by RFC 1123 (Requirements for Internet hosts -
application and support) and must be read in conjunction with these.

For another, they are extensible.  See 10.2 for a complete list of
registered subtypes.

There are a whole lot of other RFCs that deal with e-mail, including
these.

IAB standards-track RFCs

    RFC 1653  SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration.
    RFC 1652  SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport.
    RFC 1651  SMTP Service Extensions.
    RFC 1502  X.400 Use of Extended Character Sets
    RFC 1496  Rules for Downgrading Messages from X.400(88) to X.400(84)
              when MIME Content-Types are Present in the Messages
    RFC 1495  Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies
    RFC 1494  Equivalences between 1988 X.400 and RFC-922 Message Bodies
    RFC 1424  Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part IV.
    RFC 1423  Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part III.
    RFC 1422  Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part II.
    RFC 1421  Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part I.
    RFC 1327  Mapping between X.400(1988)/ISO 10021 and RFC 822.
    RFC 1314  File format for the exchange of images in the Internet.

Other RFCs (Informational, Experimental, or Historical)

    RFC 1641  Using Unicode with MIME.
    RFC 1563  The text/enriched MIME Content-type.
    RFC 1556  Handling of Bi-directional Texts in MIME.
    RFC 1489  Registration of a Cyrillic Character Set.
    RFC 1468  Japanese Character Encoding for Internet Messages.
    RFC 1456  Conventions for Encoding the Vietnamese Language.
    RFC 1428  Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8bit-SMTP/MIME.
    RFC 1357  Format for emailing bibliographic records.
    RFC 1345  Character Mnemonics & Character Sets.
    RFC 1344  Implications of MIME for Internet mail gateways.
    RFC 1343  User agent configuration mechanism for multimedia mail format
              information.
    RFC 1339  Remote mail checking protocol.
    RFC 1321  MD5 Message-Digest algorithm.
    RFC 1225  Post Office Protocol: Version 3.
    RFC 1211  Problems with the maintenance of large mailing lists.
    RFC 1176  Interactive Mail Access Protocol: Version 2.
    RFC 1197  Using ODA for translating multimedia information.
    RFC 1154  Encoding header field for internet messages.
    RFC 1153  Digest message format.
    RFC 1049  Content-type header field for Internet messages.
    RFC 1036  Standard for interchange of USENET messages.
    RFC 934   Proposed standard for message encapsulation.
    RFC 807   Multimedia mail meeting notes.

--------------------------------

10.2) MIME types

There are registered and unregistered MIME types.  Unregistered MIME
types begin with an "x-" and their meanings generally depend on
private agreements between senders and receivers.  This section lists
registered types and some known unregistered types.

--------------------------------

10.2.1) List of registered MIME types

The latest list of registered MIME types is available from this file:

ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/media-types

A list of URLs follows for documents relevant to various media types.
The media types are taken from the January, 1994 version of the
aforementioned media-types file, but the URLs below aren't necessarily
representative of the latest list of registered types.  In general,
each <type> has a directory whose name has this form:

media-types/<type>/<subtype>

The <type> directory contains the definitions of the subtypes of the
given <type>/<subtype>.


Application subtypes:

ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/activemessage
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/andrew
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/applefile
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/atomicmail
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/dec
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/dca
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/mac-binhex40
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/macwriteii
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/msword
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/news-message-id
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/news-transmission
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/octet
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/oda
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/pdf
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/postscript
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/remote-printing
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/rtf
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/slate
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/wita
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/wordperfect5.1
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/application/zip

Audio subtypes:

ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/audio/basic

Image subtypes:

ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/image/jpeg
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/image/gif
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/image/ief
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/image/tiff

Message subtypes:

ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/message/external
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/message/partial
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/message/rfc822
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/message/news

Multipart subtypes:

ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/multipart/alternative
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/multipart/appledouble
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/multipart/digest
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/multipart/header
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/multipart/mixed
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/multipart/parallel

Text subtypes:

ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/text/plain
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/text/richtext
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/text/tab-separated-values

Video subtypes:

ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/video/mpeg
ftp://isi.edu/in-notes/media-types/video/quicktime

--------------------------------

10.2.2) List of known unregistered MIME types

Here is a list of some known x-types, x-subtypes, and x-parameters.

The enumeration of these x-types here does not imply any kind of
standardization or open specification.  The meanings of x-types depend
on private agreements between senders and receivers.  Some x-types may
eventually become registered types; see sections 10.2.1 and 11.1.

Just because an x-type is generated by a proprietary mail user agent
doesn't necessarily mean that only that MUA can handle the x-type.
Metamail and MH, for example, permit you to set up your own mechanisms
to handle various standard and non-standard content types.  In
particular, it may simply be a matter of invoking some commercial
application to handle data used by that application.  For example,
FrameMaker or FrameViewer might be run to handle a content type of
application/x-framemaker.  (In the case of Frame documents, there are
several ways to handle this---see Frame Technical Note 1359 or consult
the comp.text.frame FAQ.)  The Metamail source distribution comes with
pre-defined mailcap entries for handling some x-types; these may offer
clues about how to configure your own mail user agent.

Not all of the x-types listed here begin with "x-".  Although such
non-standard types may contravene the MIME specification, the fact
remains that someone out there is generating them.  Listing such types
here is not intended to enshrine such types.

{ NOTE: some of the meanings of these x-types are GUESSES by the FAQ
  maintainer.  Please let us know about incorrect guesses, and, if
  possible, supply a URL pointing to information about the x-type.

  And please feel free to let us know about whatever wacko or not-so-wacko
  x-types that your UAs may unleash on an unsuspecting world.  If you
  have a URL for a document that describes the format, so much the
  better.  Please at least let us know what applications are generating
  the x-types in question.  }


Application types:

application/octet-stream; type=tar; x-conversions=compress
                        MH 6.8: viamail; see tar(1) and compress(1)

application/x-aiff      Z-Mail: AIFF audio data
application/x-bcpio     MHonArc: bcpio data
application/x-bitmap    Z-Mail: X11 bitmaps
application/x-cpio      MHonArc: cpio archives
application/x-csh       MHonArc: csh scripts
application/x-dvi       MHonArc: TeX DVI data
application/x-framemaker  Z-Mail: FrameMaker documents
application/x-gtar      MHonArc: GNU tar archives
application/x-hdf       MHonArc: hdf data
application/x-inventor  Z-Mail: for Inventor files
application/x-island-draw   Z-Mail: IslandDraw files
application/x-island-paint  Z-Mail: IslandPaint files
application/x-island-write  Z-Mail: IslandWrite files
application/x-jot       Z-Mail: Jot documents
application/x-latex     MHonArc: LaTeX documents
application/x-metamail-patch  metamail: patches to metamail
application/x-mif       MHonArc: Frame MIF documents
application/x-movie     Z-Mail: MoviePlayer documents
application/x-netcdf    MHonArc: netcdf data
application/x-sgi       Z-Mail: SGI ImageWorks documents
application/x-sh        MHonArc: sh scripts
application/x-shar      MHonArc: shell archives
application/x-showcase  Z-Mail: Showcase documents
application/x-sv4cpio   MHonArc: SVR4 cpio archives
application/x-sv4crc    MHonArc: SVR4 crc data
application/x-tar       MHonArc: tar archives
application/x-tcl       MHonArc: tcl programs
application/x-tex       MHonArc: TeX documents
application/x-texinfo   MHonArc: GNU texinfo documents
application/x-troff     MHonArc: plain troff documents
application/x-troff-man MHonArc: troff -man documents
application/x-troff-me  MHonArc: troff -me documents
application/x-troff-ms  MHonArc: troff -ms documents
application/x-ustar     MHonArc: ustar data
application/x-wais-source  MHonArc: WAIS sources
application/x-wingz     Z-Mail: Wingz documents
application/x-xpm1      Z-Mail: OL pixmap files
application/x-zm-fax    Z-Mail: Z-Fax documents


Audio types:

audio/x-aiff            MHonArc: AIFF audio data
audio/x-wav             MHonArc: WAV audio data
audio/x-macaudio        Iride: NOT sampled Macintosh audio

audio/x-next            MH 6.8: self-describing audio data
  see ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/mh/contrib/multimedia/mhn-tutorial.ps


Image types:

image/x-cmu-raster      MHonArc: CMU raster data
image/x-pbm             MHonArc: portable bit map data
image/x-pgm             MHonArc: PGM data
image/x-pict            MHonArc: Mactinosh PICT data
image/x-pnm             MHonArc
image/x-portable-anymap   MHonArc
image/x-portable-bitmap   MHonArc
image/x-portable-graymap  MHonArc
image/x-portable-pixmap   MHonArc
image/x-ppm             MHonArc
image/x-rgb             MHonArc
image/x-xbitmap         MHonArc: in-lines into the HTML
image/x-xbm             MHonArc: in-lines into the HTML
image/x-xpixmap         MHonArc
image/x-xpm             MHonArc
image/x-xwd             MHonArc
image/x-xwindowdump     MHonArc: X window dump


Text types:

text/html               MHonArc
text/x-html             MHonArc
text/x-setext           MHonArc
text/x-usenet-FAQ       Ohio State WWW FAQ document format


Video types:

video/x-msvideo         MHonArc: Microsoft video data
video/x-sgi-movie       MHonArc: SGI movie data


Other types:

x-be2                   old Andrew format
x-sun-attachment        Sun MicroSystems mailtool
x-zm-multipart          old Z-Mail format


--------------------------------

10.3) Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working groups

The IETF working group on Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) has developed
extensions that permit confidentiality, authentication, and integrity
to be provided in a manner backwards compatible with RFC 821 and
RFC 822.  Work is underway to align PEM and MIME which will provide
real security to MIME e-mail.

The IETF MIME working group is not actively considering significant
changes to the specifications.  However the WG still exists as a forum
for MIME developers, as a home for interpretation questions, and to
handle any problems or ambiguities that might arise in MIME.

--

11) Developers' FAQs
--------------------

11.1) How can I register a new MIME type?

The procedures for registering new content types, character set
values, access types, and conversions parameters with IANA (the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) are documented in RFC 1590.

--------------------------------

11.2) What's ESMTP, and how does it affect MIME?

ESMTP (Extended Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a mechanism by which
extensions to "traditional" (RFC 821) SMTP can be negotiated by client
and server.  The mechanism (RFC 1651) is open-ended; so far two
extensions have been defined.

Message size declaration (RFC 1653) offers a graceful way for servers
to limit the size of message they are prepared to accept.  (With SMTP,
the only possibility is for the server to discard the message after it
has been sent in its entirety.  There is no way for the client to know
that it was the size of the message that caused the problem.)

When a message is returned to the user as being too large to deliver,
one possible approach might be to fragment the message using the MIME
Message/Partial mechanism, and resubmit it.

Depending on the exact reason for the "too large" rejection, this may
or may not be a good idea.  For example, the limitation may reflect
the recipient's disk quota, in which case the fragmented message will
not be fully deliverable either.

The possibility of fragmentation should, therefore, be left to the
user's discretion (not performed automatically by the SMTP client).

8bit-MIMEtransport (RFC 1652) opens up the possibility of sending 8bit
data in mail messages, without having to use base64, quoted-printable,
or another encoding, and without the breakage that can result from
sending 8bit data to an unsuspecting RFC 821 SMTP server.  RFC 1428
(Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8bit-SMTP/MIME)
discusses some of the implications of this.

--------------------------------

11.3) Where can I get some sample MIME messages?

ftp://thumper.bellcore.com/pub/nsb/samples/

--------------------------------

11.4) Wouldn't MIME be better if it did <foo>?

This question is asked for various values of <foo>.  Perhaps the most
common is "multilevel encodings": see the next question.  There are
a couple general points that apply to all <foo>.

1. Please remember that MIME is the result of a lot of work by a lot
of persons, over a long time (look at the Acknowledgements section of
RFC 1521).  A great many ideas, probably including yours, were
considered.  In many cases, there were conflicting goals, such as
simplicity and interoperability on the one hand, and power and
flexibility on the other.

2. If you really think you've got an original idea which would improve
MIME, the correct place to pursue it is not this newsgroup, but the
working group mailing list (having first read the archives, to check
that it really is new).  Yes, this is going to be a lot more work than
posting a news article.

--------------------------------

11.5) So what about multilevel encodings?

MIME uses a two-level encoding scheme.  The original object (for
example, a picture, or a text document) is encoded using a well
defined mechanism appropriate to that object (perhaps GIF for the
picture, and text/enriched for the document).  Then a second encoding
is used to ensure that the first encoding can be transmitted intact
(probably base64 for the GIF, and quoted printable for the
text/enriched document).

Note that there is a very small number of the second encodings (five,
but three of these are simply indications of what kind of data an
unencoded body part contains), and it is not expected that there will
be many more in the foreseeable future.

The multilevel encodings idea is for a more generalized MIME-like
encoding mechanism that could indicate many arbitrary transformations
of the original object.  For example,

    Content-Type: application/tar; conversions="encrypt,compress,uuencode"

might indicate a UNIX tar file that had been encrypted, then
compressed, then uuencoded.  (This is a fictitious example of how MIME
might have worked; it's not legal MIME.  Don't worry if you've never
heard of some of these transformations.)

This may look like an attractive scheme at first, but it has a number
of problems.

1. If you've been brought up on UNIX and command pipelines, the
implementation of such a scheme seems trivial.  Surely any half-decent
machine can do something similar?  Unfortunately, this turns out to be
true only for a very restricted definition of "half-decent".  In
practice, it would be awfully difficult to implement this on a lot of
systems.  Probably even more systems would not allow new
transformations to be just "slotted in", and would require
recompilation or reshipping whenever a new one came along.

2. Each successive transformation reduces the size of the audience who
can successfully decode the message.  Every MIME mailer must be able
to decode base64 and quoted-printable, so it's guaranteed that you can
at least get back to the raw data.  What if, in the above example, I
have tar, decrypt, uudecode, but no uncompressor?

3. Such a scheme does not increase the scope of the framework defined
by MIME.  If uuencoded, compressed, encrypted tar files are useful
things to sling around, it is entirely possible to define a new MIME
type (presumably a subtype of application) to handle them.

--------------------------------

11.6) Why doesn't MIME include a mechanism for compression?

Compression is a difficult area.  It was considered by the working
group, but no consensus was reached.  There is still work going on in
this area: there may someday be a compressed-64 encoding.

Most compression algorithms have one of more of these undesirable
properties: they are covered by patent, they require the ability to
treat the input as a stream of bits, they use a large data space.  The
chances of finding a truly interoperable compression algorithm are
therefore rather slim.

It is worth noting that most or all of the image and video subtypes
(including GIF, JPEG, TIFF, and MPEG) define their own compression
schemes.

--

12) Acknowledgements
--------------------

Many persons have contributed to this document.

They include:

Alan Robiette, Alec Henderson, Axel Boldt, Carlyn Lowery, Chris
Pepper, Christophe Wolfhugel, Christopher Davis, Craig Huckabee,
Daniel Fandrich, Daniel Glazman, Dave Curry, Dave Lacey, David Barr,
David Collier-Brown, David Miller, Douglas Boyce, Ed Anselmo, Ed
Greshko, Edward Vielmetti, Erik van der Poel, Gisle Hannemyr, Harald
Alvestrand, Ian Hoyle, James Ford, Jason Beyer, Jay Weber, Jerry Peek,
Jerry Sweet, Joe Ilacqua, Joergen Haegg, John Gardiner Myers, John
Martin, John R MacMillan, John Romine, Joyce Reynolds, Keith Moore,
Larry Salomon Jr, Larry W. Virden, Lars-Gunnar Olsson, Luc
Rooijakkers, Marc VanHeyningen, Mark Crispin, Mark Grand, Marshall
Rose, Martin Wendel, Masanobu Umeda, Michael Parson, Michael Urban,
Nathaniel Borenstein, Ned Freed, Niklas Agren, Olle Jarnefors, Pat
Farrell, Paul Eggert, Piero Serini, Quentin Smart, Ran Atkinson, Ray
Langford, Rich Ragan, Rick Troth, Ron Barak, Sascha Wildner, Steve
Dorner, Steve Hole, Stuart Lynne, Susan Straub, Syd Weinstein, Tim
Goodwin, Tim Kehres, Tommy Wallo, Yehavi Bourvine.

If we've left your name off, please accept our apologies.  Drop us a
note and we'll include it for next time.

Thanks also to the University of California, Irvine, Department of
Information and Computer Science, Einar Stefferud, and Irvine Compiler
Corp., for providing the resources for maintaining this FAQ; and to
Jonathan Kamens, for coordinating the *.answers groups, and for his
post_faq program which brought you this FAQ.

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End of Part 3
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