ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Second Draft of "Implications of MIME for MTAs"

1992-05-15 08:21:17
Nathaniel,

My essay on defining 'gateway' for your note:

A "mail relay" performs store-and-forward electronic mail transfers
between two environments that are using the same electronic mail
format syntax and semantics.  In the case of the Internet, this means
that both environments are using RFC822 and, for this discussion, also
using MIME.

A "mail gateway" performs store-and-forward electronic mail transfers
between two environments that are using *different* electronic mail
format syntax or semantics.  Hence, transfering email to any of the
existing, national email services, or transfering to any X.400 service,
or even transfering into a non-MIME RFC822 environment is performed
by a gateway, rather than a simple relay.  The gateway performs
format and/or sematic (content) conversions on messages, to make
them palatable to the receiving email service.

Dave