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From: campbell@maynard.BSW.COM (Larry Campbell)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.std.misc,comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Standardizing Email?
Message-ID: <1101@maynard.BSW.COM>
Date: 21 Aug 88 05:19:22 GMT
References: <788@vsi.UUCP> <1380@cloud9.UUCP> <3437@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: campbell@maynard.UUCP (Larry Campbell)
Distribution: comp
Organization: The Boston Software Works, Inc.
Lines: 24

In article <3437@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
}dts@cloud9.UUCP (Daniel Senie) writes:
}-> There is a standard called X.400, which is the Message Handling Systems
}-> standard. It allows dissimilar machines to exchange and transport mail.
}
}I thought that was what RFC-822 was all about.  Silly me.

RFC822 is incredibly primitive.  It has no provisions for encoding
messages with multiple parts.  It has no notion of different content
types -- everything must be 7-bit ASCII.  It provides no way to
encapsulate a message within a message.  It has no provisions for
non-English messages -- you must use 7-bit U.S. ASCII, and if your
language uses accented or non-Latin characters, tough.

It is nearly impossible to layer a real office automation system on
top of RFC822, as there is no _standard_ way to mail binary files,
revisable form documents, images, etc. etc.

RFC822 (nee RFC733) was OK in 1973, but by now we should be eager
to toss it out and move on to something with reasonable functionality.
-- 
Larry Campbell                                The Boston Software Works, Inc.
Internet: campbell@bsw.com                  120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
uucp: {husc6,mirror,think}!maynard!campbell         +1 617 367 6846