Greg,
I have just obtained a copy of the Houttuin/Cargille Internet draft about
requirements for mail-based servers. I am extremely concerned by the
language used in this requirement and by the impact it could have on our
user community, if approved. I am sorry to bother you with this - I am
afraid I don't know the procedure to appeal proposed Internet
requirements, and the heading of the draft did not give any clue about
this. I thought it would be better to bring this to your and the LSTSRV-L
membership's attention rather than run the risk of starting another flame
war on the main IETF list.
The paper states, right on from the abstract, that it applies not only to
all possible e-mail based servers in the Internet, but also to all e-mail
networks connected to the Internet. This, in practice, means about any
network which is not totally closed from the "outside world", and
includes of course BITNET. This language is either inappropriate, given
that I do not have knowledge of any formal contact between the IETF and
representatives from all these networks regarding this topic (Frode and
Jim, please correct me if I am wrong), or outright scandalous, if indeed
my first impression is right and the group in question did not intend to
check with the networks in question whether this new requirement
addresses their needs or not. I suspect someone will say that this is
just what the RFC process is about and that they were indeed given a
chance to participate, but this is just like the Vogon captain in Douglas
Adams' series, and surely the Internet would not want to act in this
fashion.
My second concern is that the whole document is described using X.400
terminology, which I and most Internet (or BITNET) people are not
familiar with. I did my best to understand the document using the table
at the bottom, but failed. This makes it pretty difficult for me to judge
whether the requirements are acceptable or not. One particularly annoying
problem is the statement that mail based servers must comply with X.411
and X.420 in addition to the new rules set forth by the standard. I have
no idea what X.411 and X.420 are about and do not have the time, energy
or patience to read these standards. I am very surprised to see that a
requirement which applies (among others) to RFC822-only systems demands
that the reader purchase and read X.400 material.
My third concern is that many of the requirements I did understand are
totally arbitrary, immature or otherwise based on the assumption that
X.400(88) is some sort of holy document which mortals should not question
and which must be standardized in its RFC822 mapping as well - this in
spite of the fact that BITNET and other real networks have had real-life
experience with mail-based servers for years, whereas X.400(88), if
indeed it does possess a large user base, has at most 4 years of
practical experience.
An example of arbitrary requirement is the following:
> - Command servers shall not send an output message if
> the input message contains an P2.inReplyTo or
> P2.crossReferences field. Instead, the input message
> is forwarded to the MBS administrator.
End users generally find it more convenient to use the REPLY function of
their user agent than composing a new message - this should be obvious
enough. I know a number of users who permanently keep one message from
their closest LISTSERV in their mailbox, just so that they can easily
send more commands by replying to the old message. I see no reason why
this should be taken away from them. Ignoring messages with an
'In-Reply-To:' field does not even prevent loops, since delivery errors
do not normally have that field in the header. Only user agents generate
this field, as far as I know.
An example of an immature requirement is the following:
> - Repliers shall not send output messages to addresses
> which are likely to be MBSs, such as addresses with
> the following values in the Surname attribute:
>
> echo
>
> autoanswer
>
> listserv
>
> netserv
LISTSERV is such a complex server that it falls in most of the categories
of servers described in the document, if one ignores the fact that the
various definitions do not always match the exact behaviour of LISTSERV
to the last comma (the classification is actually another immature aspect
of the draft). LISTSERV is, among others, a replier. LISTSERV routinely
receives requests from peer servers (usually via NJE, but this can happen
via e-mail as well), and, depending on the request, may generate a reply.
The requests are received in the exact same format as end-users requests,
although the servers usually ask for internal information rather than
trying to subscribe to lists. We are not talking about a separate
server-to-server communication medium, but just about different command
verbs. And, in fact, some of the command verbs are used by servers and
users alike.
Furthermore LISTSERV and NETSERV have had, from as far as I can remember
(1984), the ability to detect and handle "dumb repliers" and avoid what
is known in BITNET lore as "message wars". It is disappointing to see
that these usernames have been included in a proposed standard as
potential troublemakers without contacting their authors to discuss the
issue.
I could continue, but I think I have made my point. This document is
attempting to define a standard that would cause popular mail based
servers with a user base of several hundred thousands to be in violation
of not one, but a large number of points in the document, to such an
extent that not only the code but the very service they have provided to
their users would have to be trashed and replaced by something totally
new and, I am afraid, not necessarily more user friendly. This was not
done after an open discussion, but "in the back" of the authors of the
servers in question (LISTSERV, NETSERV, TRICKLE, VMSSERV and probably a
lot of others are potentially affected) - and without consulting the
formal representatives of all the networks the proposal planned to
affect.
I have no time to participate in drafting a better version, nor do I have
any desire to cooperate with the kind of people who came up with it. I
only want to formally register my opposition to this standard, insofar as
it is to apply to the RFC822 world, and thank you in advance for pointing
me in the right direction.
Eric
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