Nathaniel,
A 20K hit for a fax message is doable. A 1MB hit for a fax message is asking
for problems in a hurry.
There are several things that this group should keep in mind for the future
of this specification:
- people will no doubt send these messages to several mailing lists in the
near future as this stuff catches on. Imagine a 2000+ mailing list covering
2 or 3 servers getting such a message.
- changing mail systems is a major pain especially at this point (compared
to 8 years ago). Administrators will blow it. Just look at how many sites
will gladly send you a message which you can not deliver and will not accept
the message back (long lines, message length restrictions, malformed
headers).
- Last but not least, lets not forget those IBM PC machines with the 40MB
and 60MB disks.
In summary, we have to sell this system well and watch out for things that
will lose points when you are arguing with another sites administrator.
The current protocol addresses FAX messages, generam images and character
sets like Kanji. This will make people happy as long as it does not clog
things up.
Well I am off my soap box.
-Rudy