As per Relevance of the word computer, we have this rfc below:
Network Working Group J.
Request for Comments: 808
1 March 1982
SUMMARY OF COMPUTER MAIL SERVICES
HELD AT BBN ON 10 JANUARY 1979
Introduction
This note is a very belated attempt to document a meeting that
held three years ago to discuss the state of computer mail in
ARPA community and to reach some conclusions to guide the
development of computer mail systems such that a coherent total
service would continue to be provided
Some important conclusions were reached at this meeting which
the extent to which mail systems were to incorporate new features
the context of the existing service and specifications
Unfortunately, this meeting and the conclusions were not documented
and the specifications were not revised. This has led to
problems in the mail service
Due to the passage of time these notes are necessarily
incomplete. It is thought that there were a number of
attendees. I would like to express my appreciation to those
helped provide this information, especially Vint Cerf, Jack Haverty
Danny Cohen, Bob Thomas, and Debbie Deutsch
The Meeting Announcement
On 10 January 1979 we are holding a meeting at BBN in Cambridge, MA
starting at 0930, to discuss Message Service support on the ARPANET
The purpose of the meeting is to provide a basis for
standardization of efforts which may be necessary. We will
stock of the various message services currently available on
ARPANET, discuss problems which have been encountered
different message systems, review current protocols and
forthcoming developments. An agenda is given below. Each of
should be prepared to discuss current problems you are aware of
any developments which impact future message service
Postel [Page 1]
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The Meeting Agenda
1. Present State of
. Survey of Message
. Current
. Format Protocols - RFC 560, 680, 733
. Distribution
.
2. Future Developments in Message
. Multi-Media
. Impact of Personal
. Distributed
- NSW
- Internetwork Addressing and
.
3. Impact of Charging Technology on the Message
.
. Distribution of
4. Managing the Message
5. Supporting the Message
Talks
1. Duane Adams opened the meeting. He indicated that we should
concerned about computer mail as a total message service (not just
a local user interface), and asked what impact on the message
the developments in internetting and multimedia would have
2. Dave Farber gave a bit of history of mail systems, listing
names of all the systems anybody had every heard of (see Appendix A).
It was noted that most of the mail systems were not formal
(in the sense of explicitly sponsored research), but things
"just happened".
3. Ted Myer chaired a discussion of current problems in
systems, and the following made comments as well: R. Stallman
D. Farber, P. Santos, K. Harrenstien, R. Kunzelman, T. Knight
B. Thomas, D. Lebling, J. Haverty, D. Cohen, D. Adams, V. Cerf,
A. Vezza
This was mostly gripes about what this or that mail system
wrong
Topics included use of MLFL instead of MAIL, fully
the all the usernames with hostnames on all the addresses
immediate feedback about the addressed user having a mailbox
the destination host or getting an error message later,
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table update problems, strange FTP replies (e.g., "System
down in 10 minutes"), and addressing issues
There were also some things mentioned that might be added to
current systems
Topics included virtual hosts (e.g., NSW), internetted hosts
authentication, message identification, duplicate detection
spoofing, multicopy delivery, limits on receipt, program
program mail, structured typed data, graphics, fax, and voice
At the end of this session there was a statement that further
was putting patches on patches and that we should make
commitment to a version 2 system. There should be an edict
says "this is it", and the current mail service should be frozen
4. Debbie Deutsch talked about some work being done at BBN
multimedia mail
Debbie discussed the alternatives for including other types
data (voice, graphics, fax, numeric, executable) in messages,
for structuring messages to identify and interrelate the
types of data. The main choice to make is between encoding
data in ASCII and using keyword field identifiers, or using
binary typed structured format. The current work is
integrate fax data handling into an existing text mail system
Copies of the viewgraphs were distributed
5. There was a discussion of Personal Computers
Tom Knight gave a short discription of the Lisp Machine project
There was some general discussion of the impact of
computers on mail services. The main realization being that
personal computer will not be available to handle incoming
all the time. Probably, personal computer users will have
mailboxes on some big brother computer (which may be dedicated
mailbox service, or be a general purpose host) and poll for
mail when they want to read it. There were some concerns
about accountability and accounting
6. Bob Thomas talked about the ideas for routing mail
regular mailboxes on ARPANET Hosts and mailboxes of NSW users
The main point of interest is that an NSW user is not a user of
specific host, thus, the notion of a mailbox being "user@host
dosen't work. Bob suggested that one might think of NSW as
virtual host. The implementation of this mail service for
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users is constrained to minimize the amount of new code
changes to existing programs. Bob described his ideas for
formats for sending messages between NSW users, from NSW users
ARPANET users, and from ARPANET users to NSW users. The
being the most difficult to pull off. Copies of the
were distributed, and copies of a memo were distributed (BBN
Working Note 24).
7. Jon Postel talked about the ideas he had for internet
mail systems
Two aspects of this were a general approach to addressing
routing for mail distribution, and using a structure of typed
elements to represent the message data and control
8. There was some discussion of other work in mail services
Someone talked about the work of ANSI X3 S33 on message
and protocol
Dave Farber described the activities of IFIP TC 6.5
international message services
Ted Myer described the interests of the US Congress Office
Technology Assesment (OTA) in electronic communication
General Discussion
It was suggested that we need to view the problems in building
total message service rather than individual message systems
In general it was felt that the current message service was
out of control with incompatible varations and extensions.
were several instances where a minor change to one mail system led
unexpected problems in another mail system
In part, the reason for this seemed to be the varations allowed
the protocol, and especially the partial implementation of
protocol by most systems
The general approach to resolving these problems was two fold
First, a few minor further changes were to be allowed, but
general full implementation of the protocol (RFC 733) was not
be carried out. In case of questions about a particular
Duane Adams was to decide if it would be allowed ot not. The
in this approach was to quickly stabilize the mail service in
useful state
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In particular, if a small number of senders are doing
that is incompatible with the total service, they will be
to stop doing it. Or, if a small number of receivers can'
handle something that most systems do, they will be asked
handle that feature
Second, work was to be focused on the definition
implementation of a next-generation mail service which
attack all the existing problems and include facilities for voice
fax, and graphics data
The use of structured data in the next-generation mail service
approved. Jack Haverty noted that RFC 713 specified a language
MSDTP, that could be used to define a structured mail protocol
Conclusions
A. Existing Mail
1. Mail shall not be sent between hosts if it breaks
mail programs
Outlawed by this rule are
a. Spaces in user names
b. Multiple at signs in mailboxes
2. Features of RFC 733 that are generally unimplemented
remain unimplemented, and are decommitted from the specification
Outlawed by this rule are
a. "Include" and "Postal" type addresses
3. Duane Adams will arbitrate disputes
4. There shall be no more changes to the MAIL/MLFL FTP
codes
B. New Mail
1. New services should be provided in the context of
experimental multimedia mail systems now being planned
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Action Items
1. Jon Postel is to circulate a draft specification of a
mail protocol by 15-Feb-79.
[* This became IEN-85 published in March 1979 and now
by RFCs 759 and 767. *]
2. Everyone is to submit a 2 to 3 page position paper on
to Duane Adams by 1-Mar-79.
3. Everyone is to submit a 2 to 3 page position paper on
Architecture and Message Transmission by 1-Apr-79.
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RFC 808
Appendix A
First Preliminary List of ARPANET Mail
Center;by Dave
Mail System Authors
SNDMSG Antiquity Tenex, TOPS-20
READMAIL Antiquity TEXEX, TOPS-20
RD Larry Roberts TENEX, TOPS-20
MSG Vittal TENEX (18 SITES
HERMES BBN TENEX (14 SITES
HG
MAIL Werme TOPS-10 on KA and KL10
RDMAIL Karlton TOPS-10 on KA and KL10
COMSAT KLH MIT-MC,-AI,-
MAIL/QMAIL (1) KLH MIT-MC,-AI,-
BABYL EAK MIT-MC,-AI,-
FTPS (2) KLH MIT-MC,-AI,-
SIGMA ISI Dedicated
MAILSTAT (3) BBN TENEX, TOPS-20
FTP (2) BBN TENEX, TOPS-20
MAILER (3) BBN TENEX, TOPS-20
MM MMcM@AI SRI-
BANANARD Yonke
MSG Version 1 UCB - RAND PDP 11
SNDMSG (UNIX) UCB - RAND PDP 11
MS D. Crocker PDP 11
MSG Version 2 D. Crocker PDP 11
MH Borden RAND-
Read-mail (1) Palter & Sibert Multics
print-mail Palter & Sibert Multics
send-mail Palter & Sibert Multics
MSGH Ness at Wharton Wharton 10
Wharton Mail System Ness at Wharton Wharton 10
SWAMP Guyton IBM 370
MSG Antiquity HARVARD and RUTGERS 10
MAIL (1) Harvey SU-AI-10
RCV (Mail reader) Harvey SU-AI-10
DMSG (Private)
READMAIL - LL IBM VM/370
RD Haines LL IBM VM/370
$NETMAIL ? AMES-67
(1) mail
(2) FTP
(3) service
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Attendees
Name Org
Duane Adams ARPA Adams@
Bill Carlson ARPA Carlson@
Vint Cerf ARPA Cerf@
Jerry Burchfiel BBN Burchfiel@
Debbie Deutsch BBN DDeutsch@
Jack Haverty BBN Haverty@BBN-
Charles Khuen BBN Khuen@
Mark Lavin BBN MLavin@
Charlotte Mooers BBN Mooers@
Ted Myer BBN Myer@
Ray Nickerson BBN Nickerson@
Paul Santos BBN Santos@
Bob Thomas BBN BThomas@
Mike Wingfield BBN Wingfield@
Joanne Sattley CCA JZS@
Howard Wactlar CMU Wactlar@CMU-10
James Pool DOE Pool@
Robert McNab DCA DCACode535@
Ed Cain DCEC Cain@EDN-
Warren Hawrylko DCEC Lyons@
Harry Helm DCEC Lyons@
Danny Cohen ISI Cohen@
Jon Postel ISI Postel@
Dave Lebling MIT PDL@MIT-
Tom Knight MIT TK@MIT-
R. Stallman MIT RMS@MIT-
Pat Winston MIT PHW@MIT-
Al Vezza MIT AV@MIT-
Wayne Shiveley OFDA ---
Bob Anderson RAND Anderson@RAND-
Ken Harrenstien SRI KLH@SRI-
Ron Kunzelman SRI Kunzelman@SRI-
Dave Farber UDEL Farber@
Postel [Page 8]
if you see any problems within the linking, don't worry be happy,
this is version 0.1 of the Relevance System and you gotta expect some crappy subroutines sometimes,
just be content we did not write this in Java, which would have made this "bigger and better" HAHAHHA.
RFC documents can be found at I.E.T.F.
Relevance System Copyright © 2002 Spectrum WorldResearch
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