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From: info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.info-vax
Subject: Mail to non VMS machines
Message-ID: <5421@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 11-Mar-85 08:23:45 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.5421
Posted: Mon Mar 11 08:23:45 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Mar-85 21:58:57 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 38

From: sasaki@harvard.ARPA

This is a mild flame.  If you agree with me, let your DEC salesman
know that there is a need,  and that you are willing to pay a rea-
sonable sum to fill this need.

Mail  to  non-VMS  machines  is very important to many sites (ours
included). The many work-arounds in existence point out this need,
yet DEC provides *NO* support for this.  If you don't use  DECNET,
then you lose.

There is no externally  available  documentation  for  the Mail-11
protocol.   There is no documentation for the various hooks in the
mail system.  The only source for these things is the micro-fiche,
and the documentation provided there is also lacking.

The  only way  that  I can  send  mail to a TCP/IP site (using DEC
"supported" software) is to route the mail through an  ULTRIX site
running the officially un-announced DECNET-on-ULTRIX.

Inquiries  about future plans for TCP/IP support on VMS (even with
non-disclosure) have yielded only blank stares. DEC is  developing
(currently in field test, I think) a "smart" ethernet  controller.
The only protocol that is being supported is DECNET.

This total lack of support has lead to the various work-arounds. A
few  sites  have  completely abandoned using DEC supplied mail and
are using various home-grown systems, most based on SMTP.

It is time for DEC to wake up and provide some kind of support for
network  operations  via non-DECNET  protocols.  The  company line
about official non-support,  and "your code will break in a future
release" really isn't acceptable.

			Marty Sasaki
			Havard University Science Center
			sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}
			617-495-1270