Fri, 12 Feb 1993 13:11:25 +0100
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On Thu, 11 Feb 1993 21:20:26 CST Natalie Maynor <[log in to unmask]>
said:
>I assume this wouldn't cause any problems for people at bitnet sites,
>would it? I vaguely remember seeing something somewhere on the net one
>time from a bitnet user claiming that he/she couldn't send to internet
>addresses. I found that rather odd (which is the main reason it stuck in
>my memory, albeit vaguely). The large majority of active participants on
>WORDS-L use internet addresses, but there are a few who use bitnet
>addresses.
Many BITNET sites do not have RFC822 mail software. It's sad, but it's
how things are. Lazy or understaffed computing centres point at the CREN
bylaws/charter/rules and ask where it says they have to run a mailer, and
it doesn't say so anywhere, so they go on their merry way.
In order for an Internet user not to be able to reply to mail coming from
BITNET with .BITNET addresses, you need a badly screwed up mail gateway.
All the official (INTERBIT) gateways rewrite the headers to make them
repliable. It is important to fix gateways which do not generate
repliable headers, because they are a disservice to the community. If the
only way to fix them is to delete them, then so be it: mail will just
flow on to the nearest INTERBIT and be properly gatewayed.
The bottom line is that you have hundreds of nodes which can't talk to
Internet addresses (a misdemeanour if you want, but not a serious crime),
and a small amount of broken gateways which don't do their job when there
are about 40 working, freely accessible gateways that can do it properly.
In this particular case the gateway is local and only affect the
university's machine, so that is entirely their problem.
Eric
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