From: Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@nsb.fv.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 95 03:26:23 PST
To: Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>
Subject: Re: MIME based remailing commands
In-Reply-To: <17765.792621125.1@nsb.fv.com>
Message-ID: <ojDo69v0Eyt50xSXkP@nsb.fv.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Excerpts from mail: 12-Feb-95 Re: MIME based remailing co.. Rick
Busdiecker@lehman.c (1544)

>     Well, I have no idea why you think that MIME is an "atrocity" or
>     "slime", but it is perfectly clear that you have no idea what it
>     actually *is*, since "X-" headers have nothing whatsoever to do with
>     MIME.  The "X-" headers are defined by RFC 822, which has been the
>     standard for Internet mail formats since 1982.

> You base a large conclusion on a small piece of data in combination
> with some poor duduction.  Unless you are claiming that MIME violates
> RFC 822 with respect to the handling of X- headers you have made a
> number of false claims in the paragraph above.

A very interesting claim.  Care to tell me what my "false claims" are,
or is it a secret?

> It is possible for someone to find
> ugliness where you find beauty without them necessarily being
> uninformed.

Of course.  Let me tell you, though, what the real "beauty" of MIME is: 
It is that Internet mail was upgraded from ASCII-text-only to permit
multiple character sets, images, audio, video, and arbitrary extensions,
WITHOUT breaking any existing standards or software.  It is that
multimedia mail was defined in such a way that it can cross existing
ASCII-to-EBCDIC gateways and all manner of other bizarre mail-eating
paths and still be complete and comprehensible on the other end.  That's
the kind of "beauty" we were aiming at, so if your comments are geared
to any specific technical aspects of MIME, this may be the explanation. 
We considered practical functioning and interoperation to be the
operational definition of "beauty".  -- Nathaniel