--On Monday, May 31, 1999, 9:31 AM +1000 Debra Wilson
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> because of our set up we require the use of an aliases file on a SunOS
> mail server.... Unix is case sensitive and so [log in to unmask] is
> totally different from Pete-Weiss@psu.edu...... and different again
> from [log in to unmask] or any derivative or combination of upper case
> and lower case letters..... they would be treated as totally unrelated
> accounts... (unless we added in aliasing to point them all to the one
> person so no matter what format was used, the mail would get to the
> correct account)

I'm aware of UNIX's case-sensitivity in general, however every sendmail
installation I have seen automatically converts incoming mail to lower-
case.  In other words, mail sent to Pete-Weiss or PETE-WEISS would be
delivered to pete-weiss.  And most sites create their accounts in lower-
case anyway, simply because it would be an administrative and support
nightmare to have users with case variations of the same account string.

In my experience using e-mail for the past ten years or so, I have
never had a message bounce due to sending it to the wrong case, and I
have often changed [log in to unmask] to [log in to unmask]  Just for kicks,
I sent a test message to [log in to unmask]  According to
my return receipt from your mail system, is was successfully delivered:

   ----- The following addresses had successful delivery notifications
wilsond  (successfully delivered to mailbox)
    (expanded from: <[log in to unmask]>)

Anyway, I agree with Dan's earlier response, which was basically that
they're in the RFC for backwards-compatibility with older mail systems
that did this, although they are no longer common.  I was asking my
question more out of curiosity if anyone is really doing this anymore.

Alan

--
Alan S. Dobkin, Operating Systems Analyst
Windows NT Group, Internet/Intranet Services
University Systems Support, Emory University ITD