Note: I'm not  on XMAILER nor MAIL-L (too  much noise). If you want  me to get
your replies, make sure to include me as a primary recipient.
 
>> Negative comments from someone on Internet:
>>
>> > > After the (latest) flood of bounced  mail from BITNET, I really have to
>> > > wonder if there is any point in setting up regional BITNET gateways.
>
>What is the  latest flood? The last  problem I've heard of was  in the BITNET
>redistribution of INFO-HAMS -- the problem there was PMDF (which I believe is
>more common  on the Internet  than on BITNET!)  sending the rejection  to the
>Reply-to instead of the Sender. From what  I heard, the problem wasn't even a
>mail  loop  because  LISTSERV successfully  intercepted  the  (re)distributed
>rejections.
 
So it would seem the problem was not a problem at all?
 
>> > > BITNET nodes seem  to be a world  unto themselves, and tend  to be much
>> > > less  reliable than  nodes on  just  about any  other "network"  around
>> > > (including USENET).
>
>It is easy  to cast aspersions on the  many for the sins of the  few. I don't
>think it's useful, however.
 
That's a funny remark. I've been on  BITNET for over 2 years, and receive some
75-100 files a  day. I've only lost  files twice in this  period (not counting
files sent  to nodes which had  just connected and didn't  have their software
properly installed). However,  less than 50% of  the mail I sent  to UUCP went
through. The  rest simply got me  rejection notices with "uuxqt"  subjects and
"unknown imail  error 1".  I guess it  all depends on  the sunglasses  you are
wearing when looking at other networks' reliability.
 
>
>> Attempted justification for unreasonable behavior on BITNET:
>>
>> > As I understand it, the reason that LISTSERV sets the Sender field to the
>> > name of the list instead of some human being's mailbox (as RFC822 says to
>> > do) is  that the Rice  Mail user agent (and  maybe others too?)  uses the
>> > Sender field to decide where to file messages.
>
>That is not quite  true. What user agents do, by and  large, is file messages
>according to  the external tags  (the "filename").  The real problem  is that
>LISTSERV uses  the Crosswell MAILER for  sending files, and MAILER  makes the
>filename match  the Sender field.  Also, it turns  out that a  human couldn't
>tolerate being listed as the Sender  for any reasonably busy LISTSERV because
>of the incredible flood of messages  back to the Sender reporting on progress
>of the mailing.
 
A file  called "LSTSRV-L MAIL"  with a  "Sender:" of LSTSRV-L@FRECP11  is mail
from  the  LSTSRV-L list.  A  file  called "ERIC  MAIL"  with  a "Sender:"  of
ERIC@FRECP11  would be  mail from...  maybe me,  or maybe  LSTSRV-L, or  maybe
RSCSMODS, or (...) or anything else. To know  what it is about, I have to LOOK
into it.
 
>> > LISTSERV  has filters  that most  of the  time are  able to  tell that  a
>> > message sent to a list is bounced mail and should not be distributed, but
>> > they aren't  100 percent successful,  so some  do get distributed  to the
>> > lists.
>>
>> Now, for  my comments: (I  am generally biased in  favor of BITNET,  if the
>> poor connectivity problem can be remedied)
>>
>> (1) The fact that Rice Mail uses  the Sender to determine where to file the
>>      mail is irrelevant. Fix Rice Mail  (which apparently has a prereq of a
>>      change to LISTSERV). The fact that it has a problem *does not* justify
>>      doing  something  IN VIOLATION  of  the  STANDARD  (RFC 822)  that  is
>>      supposed to govern all the mail.
 
Cool down  guy. The mail items  generated by LISTSERV contain  perfectly valid
RFC822 headers,  ok? Just because YOU  think that LISTSERV is  a mailing agent
does not mean that  *I* think so. I see LISTSERV as  a PROGRAM, which receives
an  implicit command  saying  "please distribute  this piece  of  mail to  the
following  persons, creating  new headers  according to  the format  they have
specified in their  distribution options". The default format is  to trash all
the 'Received:' junk and suchlike, which  most people are very happy with. You
can also ask  to keep all the aforesaid  junk if you want. The  list owner may
specify that a given address be put in the "Sender:" field, thus he can create
mail with a "Sender:" pointing to himself  if he suffers from masochism. If he
doesn't, it's not my fault.
 
>As noted above, the  problem is more one of MAILER than of  any user agent. I
>have  passed  a detailed  suggestion  to  Alan  Crosswell for  resolving  the
>problem. It should be noted, of course, that MAILER
 
Good  luck.  I  personally  won't  be  angry with  Alan  if  he  ignores  your
suggestion.
 
>isn't in any  sense "at fault", just not sufficiently  flexible for the needs
>of LISTSERV. For that reason, it is unfair to point a finger of blame in
>*any* direction, since MAILER and LISTSERV are maintained independently.
 
Right.
 
>> (2) Those filters really bother me.  The fraction of a percent failure rate
>>      has wreaked havoc on the network  multiple times in the last year. The
>>      filters are a band-aid solution to a problem caused by other pieces of
>>      software not being  reasonable. Fix the other software  and remove the
>>      filters.
 
Sure. Start fixing the 500 VAX/VMS mailers which send rejection notices to the
"Reply-To:" field first, and we'll continue  the discussion when this has been
done.
 
>Wait! Don't  remove the filters, whatever  else you do! There  will always be
>unreasonable software somewhere in the world.
 
Especially gateways. Look at  the BGUNOS one - the worst  I've ever came afoul
of in BITNET. Oh well.
 
Several  people asked  me  why  LISTSERV doesn't  integrate  the functions  of
MAILER. The answer is twofold:
 
1. A mailer must  be written in assembler, or possibly  in a compiled language
   like FORTRAN (yuck!!!) or PASCAL (have fun on the I/O business) or C (sigh)
   or PL/1  (be sure  that all  the potential  users have  enough $$$$  to buy
   themselves the PL/1 library license - it's not PD). The reason why LISTSERV
   is  written in  REXX is  that it  can work  on any  VM/SP site  without any
   additional license, and the resulting code is small.
 
2. A mailer  must, for obvious technical reasons, run  with a different "input
   mailbox" than LISTSERV. Mail sent to LISTSERV is normally a set of commands
   to be executed and returned to the sender. Mail sent to MAILER is something
   to  be distributed.  LISTSERV  cannot  assume that  stuff  arriving in  its
   mailbox  must be  distributed  unless  it points  to  the LISTSERV  userid,
   because shitty UUCP gateways often  place mail in LISTSERV's reader saying:
   "To:  xxyw!zyueez!uiu!(...)!frecp11!listserv"  (something with  an  '@zzzz'
   appended to it,  but not always). Gateways often don't  bother to translate
   the 'To:' field. I would be awfully glad to trash this out as being invalid
   RFC822 mail, but then users  would complain and UUCP gateway administrators
   are  quite  a  bit  anti-IBM  and   refuse  to  "make  changes  for  shitty
   brain-damaging IBM machines".
 
Anyway a  MAILER must have  a very good response  time, which is  not possible
inside LISTSERV  since other time-consuming  commands might be  executing when
the  mail request  is  received. Keep  in mind  that  the EARN-JANET  gateway,
running on an  IBM 3081-K (lots of MIPS),  is idle 0% of the  time during peak
hours, and  it's written in assembler+C.  That is, enough files  are coming in
for it  to be  busy 100% of  the time.  If it were  written in  an interpreted
language, it would NEVER be able to clear up the queues.
 
  Eric