davis@mtgzz.att.com (p.a.davis) (07/03/89)
Are there any opinions, informed or otherwise, concerning DEC's
Mail-11 protocol and its refusal to handle non-VMSmail headers ?
I find it infuriating to have mail with a reply-to routed through
a VAX running a Mail-11 gateway system, only to hear from the
recipient that the reply-to has been "excised" from the header,
and now, as far as RFC???-compliant mailers are concerned, is
actually part of the message ? Does anyone know if DEC plan to
do anything about this appallingly parochial approach before X.400 ?
Paul Davis
Internet: davis@mtgzz.att.com Bitnet: bartonb@duvm
Voice1: 201-957-5569 (day) Voice2: 215-981-0614 (night)
"All opinions are my own, which may or may not increase their value."
"To shatter tradition makes us feel free,
But tradition is a static defence
against a chaotic community ... " Annette Peacock, 1981campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) (07/04/89)
DEC will never "fix" the Mail-11 protocol. It is not too far from the truth to say that Mail-11 is braindamaged on purpose -- DEC's attitude is that if you want "real" mail, you buy Mailbus products. -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. campbell@bsw.com 120 Fulton Street wjh12!redsox!campbell Boston, MA 02146
moore@CYGNUSX1.CS.UTK.EDU (Keith Moore) (07/05/89)
In article <5217@mtgzz.att.com> davis@mtgzz.UUCP (p.a.davis) writes: >Are there any opinions, informed or otherwise, concerning DEC's >Mail-11 protocol and its refusal to handle non-VMSmail headers ? Mail-11 and VMS MAIL are toys. It's a royal pain to have to translate from MAIL-11 to "real" mail protocols, but this is because VMS MAIL was never designed to talk to anything but other VMS MAIL (or very similar) programs. >I find it infuriating to have mail with a reply-to routed through >a VAX running a Mail-11 gateway system, only to hear from the >recipient that the reply-to has been "excised" from the header, >and now, as far as RFC???-compliant mailers are concerned, is >actually part of the message ? Some SMTP-to-MAIL-11 gateway programs scan the RFC822 headers to determine the "best" reply-to address, and insert that address in the MAIL-11 "From" line, so replies go to the correct addresss. (PMDF does this, and so does my mail-11 gateway for UNIX systems.) >Does anyone know if DEC plan to >do anything about this appallingly parochial approach before X.400 ? I'm sure your DEC customer relations person will tell you that they have done something about the problem, and it's called "Mailbus". -- Keith Moore Internet: moore@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu University of Tenn. CS Dept. BITNET: moore@utkvx 107 Ayres Hall, UT Campus UT Decnet: utkcs2::moore Knoxville Tennessee 37996-1301 Telephone: +1 615 974 0822