Subject: RE: SMTP compared to IM (Re: DNS Choices: Was: [ietf-dkim] Re: Last Call: 'DomainKeys)

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:00:55 -0800

Before the web it was possible to be on a different network and still exchange email. It did not work at all well but it did work sorta.

Even though the web did in theory work on other protocols (I ran a server on HEPNET) most of the content was on the Internet.

So there was a different value proposition when someone proposed getting an Internet connection. People could no longer be fobbed off with 'The JANET gateway already allows you to exchange mail with the Internet, its cloured books for you until we deploy OSI'.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Burger [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 8:06 AM
> To: John C Klensin; Dave Crocker; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: SMTP compared to IM (Re: DNS Choices: Was: 
> [ietf-dkim] Re: Last Call: 'DomainKeys)
> 
> Actually, as I fuzzily recall in the 1986 - 1992-ish period, 
> MCImail had a large presence for business messaging and 
> CompuServe had a lion's share of consumer messaging.
> 
> Before the flames go on, realize that (1) my memory is fuzzy 
> and (2) the market was seriously fractured.  The large 
> enterprise market was doing the Notes thing; the small 
> enterprise market was doing the cc:mail, netware, etc. thing, 
> and interoperability was something that people gave lip service to.
> 
> What a difference five years made!  By 1996, pretty much 
> everyone interoperated with Internet Mail.
> 
> 
> On 11/26/06 10:35 PM, "John C Klensin" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > --On Friday, 24 November, 2006 10:30 -0500 Eric Burger 
> > <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > 
> >> Or, the reality that with (at the time) a single dominant network 
> >> provider made the inter-networking point moot.
> > 
> > Eric, you are being a little cryptic, perhaps unintentionally.
> > What do you mean about a single dominant provider and at what time?
> > 
> > I would add an observation to Dave's about possibly 
> different sets of 
> > needs by reminding everyone that considerable IM 
> functionality (other 
> > than presence) isn't new.  We had SEND/SOML/SAML from the 
> beginning of 
> > SMTP, even though they had, IMO, a very short practical 
> lifespan and, 
> > even then, were used only in limited communities.  We also we had a 
> > couple of flavors of the "talk" protocol which were 
> certainly heavily 
> > used in some places.  "Talk" involved a conversational 
> session while 
> > SEND et al was closer to what we would call a short message service 
> > today.  Off the Internet and in the land of BITNET/EARN/etc., there 
> > was also an end to end short message protocol and mechanism 
> that was 
> > extensively used.
> > 
> > None of these supported a presence mechanism in the sense that we 
> > understand it today.  As a result, one had to bind a user 
> identity to 
> > a target host in much the way SMTP does, rather than having someone 
> > attach to the network at any point and announce presence and, 
> > implicitly, location.  It is arguably those presence and mobility 
> > mechanisms and not IM itself that is the recent 
> development.  To the 
> > degree to which those mechanisms are what caused IM to take off, 
> > perhaps that reinforces Dave's view of different services serving 
> > different needs.
> > 
> >      john
> > 
> >> On 11/22/06 11:13 AM, "Dave Crocker" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> >>>>> There were no alternatives to SMTP on an IP network 
> until Instant 
> >>>>> Messaging came along.
> >>>> 
> >>>> not since X.400 over X.25 died, no. I thought you were 
> older than 
> >>>> that....
> >>> 
> >>> And there were all of the individual providers that 
> Michael cited, 
> >>> such as MCI Mail.
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>>>>> but can be seen in IM, and may likely show up in other 
> forms of 
> >>>>>> communication.  Much of this is simply the nature of software.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> It has nothing to do with software and everything to do with 
> >>>>> architecture. IM networks have less problems because all the 
> >>>>> participants share a relationship with the IM service providers.
> >>> 
> >>> It *is* interesting that the diversity of disconnected email 
> >>> services was viewed as a basic problem to solve, whereas 
> most of the 
> >>> Internet user community does not seem to feel the same 
> pressure to 
> >>> unify IM.
> >>> 
> >>> Hmmm.  Maybe IM satisfies a different set of needs than 
> does email.  
> >>> So we had better be a bit cautious about trying to generalize 
> >>> implications between them.
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> d/
> >> 
> >> 
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Ietf mailing list
> >> [email-masked]
> >> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
> 
> 

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf