Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Message-Id: <199506012022.QAA15455@wilma.cs.utk.edu>
From: Keith Moore <moore@CS.UTK.EDU>
To: conklin@info.cren.net (Jim Conklin)
cc: Keith Moore <moore@CS.UTK.EDU>, drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: getting started 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 01 Jun 1995 10:03:55 CDT."
             <199506011401.KAA04525@info.cren.net> 
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 1995 16:22:22 -0400
Sender: moore@CS.UTK.EDU

> 
>   In response to your earlier comment about MUAs as contrasted to MTAs,
> Keith, I'd like to see us look at the whole INTERNET MAIL SYSTEM insofar as
> possible, keeping in mind Stef's distinction between the "outer" and the
> "inner" Internet (hope I remembered that terminology correctly!) as a
> useful one that I believe to be consistent with your statement of scope,
> rather than what I believe to be a very fuzzy distinction between the
> functions of MUAs and those of MTAs in the functioning of Internet mail.

I'm not sure I would draw the line the same place that Stef does, but
we definitely need to draw a line.

Offhand, I'd consider our area of concern for the message format
document to be the systems that use the 822 message format and
local-part@domain addresses, with domains that are registered in the
DNS (if nothing else, as a wildcard MX record).  Things that look like
822 but don't use the same kinds of addresses aren't our concern.

Similarly, for SMTP, we are only concerned with those systems using
local-part@domain addresses, with domains in the DNS, and transporting
822{bis} messages.  But they don't necessarily have to be layered on
top of TCP.

As I said, this is offhand.  I'm trying to avoid having us decide how
822 works with uucp-style bangpaths, or what it means to use SMTP with
Mail-11 addresses.  I'm willing to entertain arguments that the lines
should be drawn somewhere else.

Keith