ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Call for Usefor to recharter

2003-01-09 09:21:06

In <01KQXJ08MY2E00AE20(_at_)mauve(_dot_)mrochek(_dot_)com> 
ned+ietf-822(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com writes:

I have to say I find the recent claim that "in the reverse direction
News->Email, such general-purpose gateways just Do Not Exist" to be pretty
amazing, if for no other reason that I have years of direct personal experience
with such gateways. For example, as many of you know, I used to be a frequent
contributor to the info-pmdf mailing list, and that list was for several years
gatewayed bidirectionally between netnews and email. (This particular gateway
was discontinued in the news->email direction at some point, but other gateways
of this sort continue to operate.)

Then please read my lips.

The important words in my claim were "such GENERAL-PURPOSE gateways".

The gateway into the info-pmdf mailing list that you mentioned was not a
"GENERAL-PURPOSE gateway". It was a special-purpose gateway for the
benefit of one newsgroup and one small group of users (and see my
respponse to Dave Crocker for the effect on such gateways).

A GENERAL-PURPOSE gateway would be one which was capable of handling and
Usenet newsgroup that was thrown at it. I repeat that such gateways do not
exist in practice (though they do exist in the mail->news direction, where
the problems are easier).

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl(_at_)clw(_dot_)cs(_dot_)man(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk      Snail: 5 
Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5