Re: Character code sets and all that

["Neil W. Rickert" <rickert@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>On Thu, 31 Jan 1991 20:23:40 GMT Neil Rickert said:
>>as to what is a line, and still be recognized.  The ambiguities are not in
>>RFC1154.  It is merely reflecting the ambiguities in the understanding of
>>the meaning of line over a broad range of systems.
>Neil:
>
>In my personal opinion, RFC1154 is completely brain-dead on this issue.
>(... much deletion)

 It is a fact of life, no matter how much you dislike it, that there are
lots of IBM systems out there generating lots of mail, with a definition
of line which prohibits completely empty lines.  They insist on at least
one blank, and sometimes of card image format with 80 blanks.  You may
not like it, and I may not like it, but no mail transfer standard is ever
going to be widely accepted if it cannot handle BITNET mail from IBM hosts.

 -Neil