Date: 4 Nov 1996 02:14:20 -0000
Message-ID: <19961104021420.623.qmail@koobera.math.uic.edu>
From: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@koobera.math.uic.edu>
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: About that 8-bit discussion.....

> So lets then talk about the number of legal 8 bit mime MTAs

I've already discussed this.

Every version of sendmail since 6.57, by default, violates the 7-bit
restrictions in RFC 821 and RFC 1652.

> While you are thinking about this,

You are falsely assuming that your arguments are new.

In fact, they're the same tired old ``why does everybody violate the
7-bit restriction?'' whimpering that we've been hearing from Q-P
proponents for years.

> Oh, so instead of you having to rewrite your mail server to handle MIME,

Why would I want to implement something that hurts the users?

> you want us to rewrite ours to handle JustSend8?

If you can't handle a message, you must bounce it. This is the
fundamental responsibility of an MTA.

> Fact: if you go against the specs and send 8 bit data on a 7 bit
> channel (as noted by the specs), you have no guarantee that your
> data will get to the other server okay.

This is tautological. Just-send-8 is, by definition, a strategy for
handling cases where where no guarantee is available. Q-P is another,
much less effective, strategy.

---Dan