ietf-822
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Re: Email Subaddressing

1997-08-02 16:28:57
On Aug 2, 10:15pm, D. J. Bernstein wrote:
} Subject: Re: Email Subaddressing
}
} > I just don't use subaddressing anywhere,
} 
} What exactly is the problem?

As I said, it's inconvenience.

} You've told us that one of your ISPs doesn't support subaddressing. Has
} it occurred to you that mail receipt isn't free?

That's irrelevant.  I'm not interested in forcing the ISP to support
subaddressing if it's too expensive for some strange reason.  I am
interested in encouraging MTA and LDA writers to include subaddressing
support so that ISPs could more easily find MTAs that support whatever
features led them to pick the one they have now, and subaddressing too.
But that's a reason for an informational document, not a standard.

} You've told us that your two other ISPs use different subaddressing
} systems. So what? Why should they match? Different domains have
} different address spaces. Where is the interoperability problem?

The interoperability problem is that the software on my Mac has to
support both schemes.  It's much easier to write software if there is
only one scheme to support.  So if there's a standard scheme, more MTA
software will support it and more MUA software will support it, and
it'll be easier for me to find software that works for multiple ISPs.

} > I am interested in how the submission agent that comes with my Mac MUA
} > interfaces with the MTA and LDA on the Win/NT host that's my ISP's IMAP
} > server.
} 
} What are you talking about? Submission agents don't talk to LDAs, or to
} IMAP servers.

No, but if I'm going to put the right thing in my Reply-To or From header,
I need to know what format the MTA and LDA are willing to accept when my
recipients send mail back to me.  And if the submission agent is in charge
of filling in those headers, as you suggested it should be, then it has to
interoperate with the LDA, albeit by a very circuitous route.

} Your MUA probably doesn't even include a submission agent;
} instead it uses SMTP (incorrectly, but by bilateral agreement) to relay
} what you typed to a submission agent on the server.

That's true, but the server (also incorrectly but by bilateral agreement)
doesn't have a submission agent either.  I simply adopted your terminology
because you refused to discuss the real-world situation of MUAs talking
directly to MTAs.

-- 
Bart Schaefer                                 Brass Lantern Enterprises
http://www.well.com/user/barts              http://www.brasslantern.com

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