On Fri,  4 Dec  1992 12:05:07  EST "(Wayne  Smith)" <[log in to unmask]>
said:
 
>   Wagner is telling IBM that repair of SMTP is a waste of time? Can you
>   tell me some of the story  behind your remark, please? (Is SMTP being
>   rewritten?)
 
Most of the story is available from the IBMTCP-L logs. It happened around
february of this year. SMTP is not being rewritten. The code in SMTP that
folds  headers longer  than  80  is buggy  and  this  was preventing  all
Lithuanian users from accessing BITNET  (it worked only in one direction,
so no mailing  list subscription or the like was  possible). I wanted IBM
to fix it of course. Wagner claimed first that SMTP was not violating any
standard  and thus  IBM was  free  not to  fix  it, and  then after  this
statement was proved  wrong by a RFC  expert he said this was  a waste of
manpower given the fact that it  will not completely solve the problem of
long userids  (only most of  them) and that  the VM mailer  would support
Netdata format in the near future.
 
IBM decided  not to  fix the  problem. This  was a  serious blow  for the
credibility of  BITNET in  Nordic countries, as  Lithuania was  unable to
access BITNET  for several months (they  then got .LT registered  and the
problem was bypassed  because the addresses became  shorter). Finland has
already started phasing  out BITNET, with 6 nodes out  of 26 deleted this
month; FINHUTC, the  home of one of the largest  LISTSERV archives in the
network, if not  THE largest, and a pioneer in  the development of BITNET
and LISTSERV,  is going away  next month or  in february. We  still don't
know where we  will put the 92  public lists it was  hosting. My position
was  removed from  the  organizational  charts last  week,  along with  a
decision  to   downgrade  the  NJE   service  from  a  "service"   to  an
"application", like  TELNET, which  requires no  particular coordination.
For reasons which would be long to  explain that doesn't affect my job in
the immediate future.  However, BITNET is now definitely on  its way out.
Note that these decisions were made *after* I wrote LMail (I was informed
the day  after the original  announcement). So this  is not the  reason I
wrote it; in fact, the news made it look like I had worked in vain.
 
I'm not blaming  any of this on Wagner  and IBM, it was only  one part of
the picture  and I  am fully aware  of that. But  the fact  that, without
LMail, BITNET  would still be  unable to  handle these addresses  and, as
seen by external  decision-makers, "BITNET" not only did  not do anything
to  fix a  problem preventing  an entire  country from  being served  but
actually asked IBM not to fix it because it isn't worth it really did not
give the kind of impression that  might have prevented this move. And I'm
cc:-ing Wagner on this so he gets a chance to flame me.
 
  Eric