At 4:14 PM 1/4/95, Masataka Ohta wrote:
As long as we have
one server which is not 8-bit clean, then you can never assume that
you can just-send-8.
Sure. At the same time, as long as someone has 8-bit clean servers
on all the mail pathes, then he can assume that he can just-send-8.
So, I'm afraid your statement is completely meaningless.
I agree with this, but at the same time it is a fact that it exists
SMTP servers on Internet which MX records points to which can not
handle 8-bit characters. So, if you are using MX records when delivering
mail, you do have servers which can not handle 8-bit characters
in your mail-path, and because of that you should never send that.
What I wrote was that normal hosts, connected to the Internet, using
MX records when sending mail, DO HAVE these 7-bit mailers in their
mail-path and because of that no such sending host should use
just-send-8 without using the ESMTP extention.
I know that the group of people which think they have full control of
their mail paths is much larger (unfortunately) than the group
of people which actually do have control.
Do you think you can send 8-bit characters to me? You can't! By
using the ESMTP extension you can get that information and "downgrade"
your mail.
And if you are not using MX records, the mailer in the mail-path
which uses MX records must be able to handle the ESMTP extension,
even if all MTAs from your system to this one is 8bit clean.
In you environment, Keld, I know that you are using MNEMONICS according
to RFC-1345, but that is a different way of solving the problem. When
actually having 8-bit characters to send, I strongly argument
against a just-send-8 solution.
The important point is that real users did not choose 8BITMIME nor QP
but mnemonics.
That is, hypothetical virtue of backward compatibility of MIME is
denied by the practice.
What are you talking about? In Kelds environment they did choose
MNEMONICS together with MIME instead of using QP to be able to
more easy handle the process when migrating from 822-only mail
to MIME. That a group of people did choose MNEMONICS does NOT
imply that they did not choose MIME.
Please read what I did write. I didn't write anything about MIME
in the sentence about the MNEMONIC stuff.
What I was arguing about was that noone in daily life should
just-send-8 without first using some ESMTP extension.
Patrik