From: bill.stewart@pobox.com
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 17:28:30 -0800 (PST)
To: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@invweb.net>
Subject: Re: I was auto-outed by an IMG tag in HTML spam
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980220184839.008d4b50@popd.ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980302124517.008b7260@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 09:02 AM 2/21/98 -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
> > > 1. HTML in mail: There is just no place for this crap in e-mail. 
> > HTML is a fine format for email.  It's ASCII readable, and supports
>Yes but who needs all this crap in e-mail??
>E-Mail is a messaging protocol not a protocol for large documents 

Nonsense.  E-Mail is an interface for mailing stuff to people,
and an email system that can't handle large documents is broken.
In particular, the MickeysoftMail view that the contents of a message
belong in attachments rather than message body is broken
(it's partly due to myopia, and partly because some of the popular
Windows GUI programming widgets can't handle more than 32KB.)

>I must admit that atleast MS Outlook follows the RFC's and makes use of
>multipart/alternative when sending out HTML formated messages so others
>are not forced to use a webbrowser to read their mail (unlike Net$cape or
>Eudora).  There is no place for HTML in e-mail plain and simple.
>I do not wan't to have to load a huge bloated bugfilled webbrowser 
>just to process my e-mail messages.

First of all, you don't need a web browser to read HTML.
Eudora doesn't use one - it displays it natively.
(If you attach an HTML attachment rather than putting HTML in the body,
then you need an HTML viewer (which may or may not be a web browser), 
but that's the same as needing a text viewer to view text attachments.)
	(Netscape _is_ a huge bloated buggy web browser, and you could
	argue about whether it needs to have a mailreader hung off the side,
	but it's helped them with their market share, and if you
	don't like it, use Eudora.)

Furthermore, HTML is written in ASCII, and designed to be human-readable,
and designed so the user can choose how to display it -
HTML viewers are supposed to display documents in the user's preferred
formats given the limitations of the display device.
If you like Netscape or IE 4.x browsers to view HTML, use them, 
but if you'd prefer Lynx for a lean, mean browser, 
or MSWord or another viewer like HoTMetaL, go ahead.

Some people like to send rich-text attachments.  HTML is a much better
standard for doing that than some MS proprietary format.
Most of the rich text mail I get at work is in proprietary MS formats,
(most of it that I get at home is SPAM :-), which means I need to use
a buggy bloated word processor to read it, except when Exchange
feels like using its Outlook Evil Twin to display the stuff,
but it's somewhat pleasant to have colors and fonts available.


>>Netscape mail is adequate for many people, just as Eudora is. 
>>Newer versions are pretty bloated, but including 
>>S/MIME mail encryption for everybody is a Good Thing.
>Now this is really scary. You consider pushing weak 40bit S/MIME on the
>internet users a GoodThing(TM)?  I think you need to sit down and rethink

40 bit?  Not good, but domestic versions are supposed to support 128;
maybe they don't in practice.  (NS 3.x was bloated enough that I haven't
upgraded to 4.x)   And getting people in the habit of using
crypto is a good thing.  

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639