Message-Id: <199601050945.EAA03047@wilma.cs.utk.edu>
From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
To: Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au>
cc: Alain Zahm <zahm@sophia.telis-sc.fr>, moore@cs.utk.edu,
        ietf-drums <drums@cs.utk.edu>, Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
Subject: Re: Rep (2) : The conservative and liberal commandment 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 05 Jan 1996 20:13:15 +1100."
             <1466.820833195@munnari.OZ.AU> 
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 04:45:24 -0500
Sender: moore@cs.utk.edu

> Don't treat Keith's words as any kind of a slur on those who
> implement gateways, most of whom (OK, not all) do a very good
> job attempting to reconcile almost irreconcilable differences
> bewteen the systems.

For the record: I am the implementor (long ago) of a somewhat
widely used gateway between Internet and DECnet that, despite
my best attempts to avoid doing so, still manages to generate 
illegal addresses some of the time.   I have since written 
an M.S. thesis on email gatewaying, with large portions devoted 
to the pitfalls of address translation, and I still don't think 
I really managed to list all of them.

My experience with gateways is:

a) It really *is* difficult to do a good job, but with care
   in design and attention to detail, very good results can 
   often be obtained.
b) There are a number of widely used gateways out there that
   don't even seem to try to do a good job, and which cannot
   be relied upon for reliable mail handing.  Many of these 
   are sold by big-name vendors for a tremendous amount of money.

So I certainly wouldn't slur gateway implementors (after all, 
I'm one of them), but I really really wish that there weren't 
so many poorly implemented gateways out there.

Keith