forwarded by request of the author. my reply follows.

[Paul A Vixie <vixie@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 14:13:52 +0200
From: kankkune@cs.Helsinki.FI (Risto Kankkunen)
Message-Id: <9102201213.AA12179@keos.Helsinki.FI>
In-Reply-To: Paul A Vixie's message as of Feb 19, 10:28
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To: Paul A Vixie <vixie@pa.dec.com>
Subject: Re: proposed rfc on SMTP and 10646

> 1. There's considerable cost to changing SMTP: all the relays in the
> world will need new software.

It wouldn't be necessary to upgrade all the relays, if the SMTP changes
were made upwardly compatible. Of course, those who don't upgrade
wouldn't get the benefits of 8-bit/binary transfer.

> Given that many SMTP server "binaries" in my personal experience were
> last recompiled/relinked in 1983 or 1984

Maybe there hasn't been any need to relink them as the spec hasn't
changed since then...

> Thus, we can't solve our problem with a single change if that change is
> made to SMTP.

True.

> .: We can solve all the problems we know about by extending RFC822 to cover:

True.

It would be nice, however, to remove those silly restrictions from SMTP
in addition to this. Can't we specify a binary option to the standard
and see if anyone wants to use it?

Risto

- -- 
 Risto Kankkunen                   kankkune@cs.Helsinki.FI (Internet)
 Department of Computer Science    kankkunen@finuh          (Bitnet)
 University of Helsinki, Finland   ..!mcsun!uhecs!kankkune   (UUCP)

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