NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/comp/mail/misc/3641

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-10 | 3.0 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!ogicse!uwm.edu!linac!uchinews!machine!chinet!les
From: [e-mail] (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: What features would _you_ like in a mailer?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Nov 92 01:38:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: chinet.BxJ38A.5Fv
References: <pauln.720877298@nuustak>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Lines: 47

In article <pauln.720877298@nuustak> [e-mail] writes:
>
>We are planning to develop a new, all-singing, all-dancing mail system.
>This will run over a mixture of IP and Novell networks, interactive and
>batched dial-up links,  It will integrate DOS and Unix workstations, as
>well as Windoze and OS/2, etc.  It will have gateways to SMTP, MHS, fax
>and anything else that we can think of (maybe even X.400).

>We have had a few discussions internally about the features that we would
>like, and have come up with a whole lot.  However, if there is anyone who
>has a specially favourite mailer feature (apart from prescience), we would
>like to know about it, so that we can consider it.

(1) Ability to attach arbitrary files.  Complete MIME functionality
should not be required on all platforms - just a minimal subset of text
or binary where binary types are not expected to be understood by other types
of machines.  It should be possible to detach the components of a MIME
message to individual files without having specific knowledge of the
content type built into the mailer.  The typical need is for people with
similar machines and software to be able to share platform-specific data
with the mail system being used as a simple transport mechanism.

(2) "Forms" functionality where a message can be sent out with a
specific format where the answers are forced into designated postions
when someone replies.  This is useful for machine-parsing answers.

(3) A clean split between the user agent and transport layers such
that any method of moving files between machines can be used.  This
means a well-documented file-level representation.  Something like
BSMTP with MIME attachments would be easy to integrate with existing
platforms, but something that mapped to X.400 body parts might work
too.

(4) Transport layers should work for individual or site use and should
run over straight dial-up lines as well as network links or SLIP.  That
is, a transport should exist that would move a single user's mailbox
from a hub site (perhaps a unix host) to his local machine (perhaps
a notebook PC) on the order of dial-up POP.  A variation should allow
retreiving multiple mailboxes on the same call (perhaps from a machine
on a small PC network), and of course another variation would be used
when acting as a remote host (i.e. where the addressing notation directs
the mail to a different machine). Obviously uucp should be a possibility
for this, but perhaps not the only one.  The transport should be simple enough
that a DOS TSR is possible for scheduled background calls.

Les Mikesell
  [e-mail]