>Couldn't this format be  made to work with nodes that  have no mailer as
>well as with BSMTP-capable nodes?
 
Yes and  no. No it can't,  for the minority  of nodes which don't  have a
full  NJE implementation.  Yes it  is, for  those nodes  to which  the VM
mailer can successfully send a BSMTP-submitted file where the recipient's
address doesn't  appear in the  RFC822 header.  What I mean  is, LISTSERV
submits  the  mail  to  the  MAILER,  in  BSMTP  format,  without  RFC822
indication of the  destination. If the MAILER can deliver  that, fine. If
it can't, tough. I  don't see what I can do to  improve this: sites which
run an RJE emulator and rely on  the RFC822 header to know who's supposed
to get the note aren't going to like an anonymous BSMTP header.
 
>Also, it  would be  useful if  a node  administrator could  request this
>feature for all users at his or her node.
 
And what  if the users don't  like it? I'm  not going to even  attempt to
arbitrate fights between  node admins and users. You can't  just say it's
their  business and  they should  fight privately,  the lawyers  might be
involved (like a NAD may not be able to decide for his users on an option
which causes  their name to appear/disappear  from the headers of  a note
which might get sent to other people).
 
>One thing that's  not absolutely clear in the 1.6a  announcement is what
>criteria are used to decide  when multiple recipients at different nodes
>will be addressed in the same file. Is it done if they are served by the
>same gateway or mailer?
 
One file is sent to the mailer  with all the BSMTP recipients. The mailer
figures out how  to split that into separate files.  Before this is done,
the normal  DIST2 process ensures  that the files  are moved as  close as
possible  to the  official gateway  for  the sites  through the  LISTSERV
backbone.
 
  Eric