Excerpts from internet.ietf-822: 31-Jan-92 Openly-available Multi-medi..
Marshall Rose(_at_)dbc(_dot_)mtview (2606)
ps: I was going to release this when the MIME RFC came out, but since
Nathaniel released his, it is time to put market forces to work.
Competing openly-available software. Now THAT's the sign of a
robust market!
Just so you don't all think I jumped the gun TOTALLY irrationally: the
reason for the timing of my release was the winter USENIX conference, at
which I was giving a paper on metamail. I knew that at the end of the
talk there would be the inevitable "where/when can I get it?" questions.
Since the MIME draft had been approved by the working group, and since
initial feedback indicated that nothing technical/substantive would be
changed by the IESG/IAB, I decided to go ahead and make it available.
Otherwise, like Marshall, I would have awaited the IAB blessing.
I am delighted that Marshall's code is now available. I know we both
agree that the success of MIME is far more important than the success of
any particular implementation, and I suspect that MIME implementations
will for the most part succeed or fail together, rather than at each
others' expense. Congratulations and Kudos to Marshall for the new MH!
-- Nathaniel