Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Message-Id: <9505312014.AA20382@snark.imsi.com>
To: Eric Thomas <ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE>
Cc: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: getting started 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 31 May 1995 21:45:34 +0200."
             <199505312005.QAA26558@wintermute.imsi.com> 
Reply-To: perry@imsi.com
Date: Wed, 31 May 1995 16:14:03 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>


Eric Thomas writes:
> On Wed,  31 May 1995  15:48:06 -0400 "Perry E.  Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>
> said:
> 
> >2) If  you can't  understand that this  issue is not  a unix  issue, you
> >don't understand the issue.
> 
> Of course I understand that this has  nothing to do with unix. I was just
> showing how ridiculous it is to  suggest that people can't gateway to the
> Internet  if the  mail system  being gatewayed  to doesn't  have all  the
> properties of Internet mail.

The internal systems do not need to have all the properties. The
gateway *does*.

> Of  course. Do  you  have any  experience with  mail  systems other  than
> RFC822?

Yes, Lotus CC: Mail, Microsoft Mail, EMC^2, PROFS, Wang's mail system
and other bastardized systems from hell among them. There is no excuse
for the pathetic kludges refered to by the purveyors of these systems
as "gateways". I have on several occassions built better things in
PERL in an hours work.

> Well, guess  what happens when you  try to gateway this  to the Internet?
> The gateway has to put *something* in the one-size-fits-all origin field.

The problem is not in outgoing mail from these pathetic gateways. It
is the fact that they routinely bounce to header addresses on incoming
mail, or send you helpful messages, or fail to relay error messages
with <> as the origin address, or fail to accept mail with <> as an
origin address, or ....


Perry