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Date:      Fri, 4 Sep 1998 09:31:09 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        allen campbell <allenc@verinet.com>
Cc:        chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: mail's fate (was Re: E-day problems: rtld-elf dlsym() broken?)
Message-ID:  <19980904093109.L606@freebie.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <19980902095251.A4233@verinet.com>; from allen campbell on Wed, Sep 02, 1998 at 09:52:51AM -0600
References:  <Pine.BSD.4.00.9809010729170.18315-200000@feldman.dyn.ml.org> <199809020322.WAA03118@detlev.UUCP> <19980902160634.G606@freebie.lemis.com> <xzpww7nrle1.fsf@hrotti.ifi.uio.no> <19980902174341.I606@freebie.lemis.com> <19980902095251.A4233@verinet.com>

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On Wednesday,  2 September 1998 at  9:52:51 -0600, allen campbell wrote:
>>>> It seems to me that we should agree on some base set of functionality
>>>> that a reasonable mailer should support.  Most reasonable mailers
>>>> support MIME nowadays, but the level of support varies considerably
>>>> (that's one of the reasons I moved from elm; when I tried pine, I
>>>> didn't have any trouble with MIME, but I just didn't like some of the
>>>> things it did).  I'll toss in a couple of features for discussion:
>>>>
>>> (collection of "NO"s omitted).
>>
>> Why not?  Do you enjoy not being able to read messages you receive?
>> I'm not saying you should, for example, *send* HTML messages (see
>> http://www.lemis.com/email.html for my view on that), but I still
>> think it makes sense to be able to handle them when you receive them,
>> and I would expect that a modern mailer should be able to handle *all*
>> of them.
>
> HTML reads fine in Mozilla, mutt and many other mailers.  The base
> mailer has no business with HTML.  Its job is to be there by default,
> small, fast, standard and operate with as little overhead and
> nonsense as possible.  Expecting the base mailer to be a full
> featured, contemporary program is Microsoft think.  You want a
> 'better' mailer?  Obtain and install one; there are dozens to chose
> from.  You want to run a reliable, efficient server?  Take comfort
> in knowing that the base system hasn't been run through with HTML,
> Base-64, MIME, Real Audio, Active X, RTF, Postscript, 0.5 GB of
> fonts, Web-TV, COM, Cobra, Java, etc, etc...

I think you're missing the point (but thanks for changing the subject
line...)

I'm not advocating sending messagesin HTML or other stuff.  I'm just
considering what a standard mailer should be able to display, not to
send by default.  I get lots of messages in strange formats, and it
pisses me off to have to go and translate them manually.  HTML is not
a problem with mutt, as you say, but that doesn't mean I like
receiving it: it just means I can read it when I get it, which is more
than I can say for the Microsoft Wart attachments I keep getting.

Greg
--
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