les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (01/11/89)
>In article <6182@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: >>We have two new versions of netnews coming out within the month -- C >>news and TMNN (News 3.0). I believe both of them are 8-bit-clean, that >Even if it is true, posting binary files in binary format is a bad >idea for several reasons: Why not make a header line indicating that the following data is binary (possibly with a length and checksum or CRC), and have an alternate encoding for machines that cannot yet deal with binary data? Then make the forwarding software encode if the destination is not known to be able to handle the binary format. The receiving software (if current) could also fix things if sent the wrong format. The user agents could handle either form transparently with attach/detach file commands. The AT&T PMX-mailers do something like this - it would be nice if the headers were compatible. Les Mikesell