🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <113918@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> argv%eureka@Sun.COM (Dan Heller) writes:

>>  On the other hand, I see "^From " in messages
>> quite frequently. Well, actually, it's "^>From " that I see frequently.

>> UNIX's stoopid mail format insures that no line which starts with the word
>> From will survive intact. This mangling of mail is completely unwarranted.
>> This sorry excuse for a mailbox format should have been retired years ago.

>Several problems with your observations I think.

No, I don't think so.

>1) Any line that starts with "From " will turn into a ">From" line as soon
>   as a sendmail system finds it.  You're blaming an MUA for a fault of the
>   MTA.  This has nothing to do with Mail, Mush or MH.

I didn't blame the bloody MUA, I blamed the mail format. That was the topic
of my message, got it? Not which interface is best but which format is best.
And UNIX mail format is not best.

>2) "From " is not the message separator -- the message separator is:
>    "From <address> <date(1)>\n"

That is as may be, but none of the delivery agents that use the UNIX mail
format bother to make that little distinction. Lines that begin with "From "
(or even "from ") get munched.

>I have just pointed out that logistically, the two formats are functionally
>the same.  The advantage that unix-mail format has over MMDF format is the
>fact that you can't send ^A's in mail messages.

Baloney. MMDF will never modify a message regardless of what a line begins
with. And you can't mail \001s *period*. Won't fly. Mailers don't do it.
It has nothing to do with the file format you use.

>As a result, you can't mail MMDF folders to another site any more easily
>than you can send a unix-format folder.  In both cases, the folder has to
>be modified somehow.

What does this have to do with anything? Nobody has said anything in this
discussion about mailing folders except for you. Sending a folder via normal
mail paths is insane. You simply can't expect them to arrive intact, although
that might happen if you're lucky.

Bill Wisner		wisner@mica.berkeley.edu	     ucbvax!mica!wisner
I'm not the NRA either.