From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand
<harald(_dot_)t(_dot_)alvestrand(_at_)delab(_dot_)sintef(_dot_)no>
To: beckywy(_at_)microsoft(_dot_)com
Cc: olle(_at_)edvina(_dot_)se, Mats Brunell <matsb(_at_)sics(_dot_)se>,
ietf-822(_at_)dimacs(_dot_)rutgers(_dot_)edu
Subject: MIME vs RFC 1154 as mail strategy
...
As things stand now,
...
- RFC 1154 is not being actively pursued by anyone in an open fashion.
Until yesterday I thought the *only* commercial users of RFC-1154 were
PathWay Messenger (our UA here) and Poste. We chose 1154 because it was
what was there --at-the-time--, not from any belief it was fantastically
wonderful or anything.
It is pretty obvious (to me anyway; I might be deranged) that MIME is
Generally Accepted and will become an e-mail standard on par with X.400.
Even people like the EMA have admitted to its existance and given MIME
a pretty prominent and favourable mention in a paper of theirs I recently
reviewed.
IMO continued work with 1154 only muddies the picture.
I think it would be a grave mistake when trying to use a standardized
E-mail network like SMTP to base oneself on work that is not sanctioned,
and indeed will probably be actively opposed, by the community that
has written the standards and are living with the results.
Amen!
<- David Herron <david(_at_)twg(_dot_)com> (work)
<david(_at_)davids(_dot_)mmdf(_dot_)com> (home)
<-
<- "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change
them."
<- Karen Hargrove of Microsoft quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial.