🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <995@killer.UUCP> elg@killer.UUCP (* Airwick *) writes:
>in article <654@vixie.UUCP>, paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) says:
>> Now the fact is that there IS NO SUCH THING as a bang address.  Bangs are
>> used in routes, not addresses.  At-signs are used in addresses.  There is
>> such a thing as a 'route-addr', which uses colons and commas, but I really
>> don't understand much of that (which is too bad, since my sendmail.cf does!)
>
>Gee, I'll have to tell that to the mailer here at machine "killer". It doesn't
>understand @ signs at ALL. Doesn't ihnp4!foo!bar mean the same thing as
>bar@foo, as far as differentiating the machine and ID of the reciever goes?
>The only difference is that ihnp4!foo!bar also includes a little routing
>info....  

As far as identifying the host and user of the recipient, both forms have
that information, yes.  The extra routing information is usually wrong, since
the From: line is not supposed to be modified, and the UUCP From_ line is
usually not used for replies (not by mailx, anyway, and if there's an option
for this it ought to be the default, or at least prominently displayed in the
documentation).

>If we define an "address" as a "unique identifier identifying a) the machine
>of the recipient, and b), the ID of the recipient", then it's obvious that
>both "bang" paths and "at" addresses are, in fact, both addresses, even though
>one includes more information than the other.

If you define "address" that way, yes, both forms are an address.  The point
I've been making is that the Internet _doesn't_ define an address that way,
and there's less work involved in using the existing meaning of "address"
than in changing all the Internet sites to use a different definition.

>>A user of the ! syntax can get SMAIL for free, and join the internet.  A
>>program that understands both bangs and at-signs can either do it the way
>>the standards tell us to do it, or do it some other way.  If the program
>>adheres to the standard, everybody's mail will get through.
>
>There's one problem with this. The vast majority of system operators out there
>are NOT mail gurus. Their machine comes with /bin/mail and /bin/mailx, their
>mailer is rmail (which talks to uux), and they're busy doing their JOB instead
>of trying to keep up with the latest "standards" to come out. Call it "head in
>the sand" if you will, but most of these people don't even KNOW that SMAIL
>exists. 

Yeah, I know.  Whatever vendors ship to clients, becomes the unofficial
standard.  People support it because it exists, and often it's an accident,
not intended for the wide support it eventually receives.

I don't know how to solve this.  I do consulting work, and I've set up SMAIL
for money before -- it takes about 30 minutes once you know what to do.  For
the vast majority of people who will only use what their vendor supplies, I
have no immediate answer.

I think that X.400 will get wide support, since ISO standards are very popular
with vendors; unfortunately, an X.400 mailer is a salable product, and will
probably be an extra-cost option in future UNIX(tm) releases, which means that
UNIX and e-mail will probably stop going hand-in-hand.  Whether X.400 is a
good thing technically or not, I can't comment -- I don't know.

-- 
Paul A Vixie Esq
329 Noe Street       {ptsfa, crash, hoptoad, ucat}!vixie!paul
San Francisco        ptsfa!vixie!paul@ames.ames.arc.nasa.gov
CA  94116            paul@vixie.UUCP     (415) 864-7013