Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question
Erik Huizer <Erik.Huizer@surfnet.nl> Thu, 27 May 1993 12:39 UTC
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From: Erik Huizer <Erik.Huizer@surfnet.nl>
Message-ID: <9305271112.AA03224@survival.surfnet.nl>
To: Jock Gill <jgill@nsf.gov>
Cc: "James (J.K.) Ko" <jamesko@bnr.ca>, genovese@ophelia.nersc.gov, osi-ds@cs.ucl.ac.uk
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.05a.9305262026.K29385-a100000@note1.nsf.gov>
Subject: Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question
Organisation: SURFnet bv
Address: Cluetinckborch, P.O. Box 19035, 3501 DA Utrecht, NL
Phone: +31 30 310290
Telefax: +31 30 340903
Jock, Interestingly enough the same debates rage through Europe currently. The EEMA (European Email Association), which harbours the most important ADMD and PRMD operators in Europe has invited Internet experts to talk on Interconnection issues and possibillities on june 10th at Schiphol airport (Amsterdam). Especially in Europe where CEC regulations have led to a much broader acceptance of X.400 as WAN E-mail protocol (the WAN is intentional) than anywhere else, the National Service providers for Academic and research networks, have lot's of experience with both RFC-822/Internet mail and X.400, and of course with gateways between them. The problem with X.400 as I see it is that it had the chance to become THE E-mail protocol, from workplace to workplace. Due to the complexity of the X.400 protocol, however, implementations so far a not delivering the quality of userinterfaces, systemmanagement and routing capabilities that their Internet based counterparts do. In the mean time Proprietary E-mail packeges have stormed the LANs (CC:-mail, MS-mail etc.) with friendly and well integrated user interfaces that will not easily be replaced by products that talk X.400 (or RFC-822 for that matter). The more so because OSI conformant products for the LAN are far from ubiquitous. Proprietary protocols require gateways to the WAN E-mail protocol of your choice (X.400(84/88/93) or SMTP/RFC-822/MIME/PEM), and that will lead to confusion, management problems, limited usage and overall loss of service. Therefore it is probably best to make sure that proprietary protocol usage is prevented by offering a standard alternative, that has enough choice in implementations with a high quality of User interfaces, and a high quality of routing and management infrastructure. Currently, The internet suite of protcols wins on this front from the X.400 based suite. X.400(88) is coming up and will certainly improve things, but at the same time the Internet protocols improve likewise. My view is that there is no way we get rid of the Internet mail protocols anymore, nor can we get rid of X.400. What we should fight for is to keep it limited to these two, and prevent Lotus, Novell and Microsoft of becoming so dominant with their LAN-E-mail protocols and associated WAN tunneling mechanisms, that we end up with even more than two Wide area E-mail protocols. I'll finnish this too long mail with a recommandation (It's European, so you may ignore it :-) Allowing the Internet protocols within GOSIP will thus improve the chances of limiting the WAN E-mail protocols. If you don't do it people will search for alternatives and end up with gateways to X.400 which will start tunneling all kinds of unstandardised traffic. Erik Huizer SURFnet bv (Also Internet Engineering Steering Group Applications Area Director)
- Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Tony Genovese
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Eric D. Williams
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Alf Hansen
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Jock Gill
- re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question James (J.K.) Ko
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Tony Genovese
- re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Jock Gill
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Erik Huizer
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Steve Goldstein--Ph +1-202-357-9717
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question James (J.K.) Ko
- re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Tony Genovese
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Eric D. Williams
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Eric D. Williams
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Jon Crowcroft
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Colin Robbins
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Marco A. Hernandez
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Erik Huizer
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Erik Skovgaard
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Steve Kille
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Erik Skovgaard
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Jock Gill
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Jock Gill
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Erik Skovgaard
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Erik Skovgaard
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Alan.Young
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Julian Onions
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Steve Goldstein--Ph +1-202-357-9717
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Jock Gill
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question pays
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Alf Hansen
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Sylvain Langlois
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Eric D. Williams
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Steve Kille
- Re: Yet another X.400 vs SMTP question Erik Skovgaard