> -----Original Message----- > From: David F. Skoll > Kevin A. McGrail wrote: > > If I had to guess, a way to get around max message sizes > which at the > > time were plaguing usenet.
> Well, system administrators generally have a good reason for > setting the maximum message size, and for RFC authors to > attempt to subvert that is just plain wrong. Agree in principle. I'll just point out that breaking up large attachments into multiple messages was fairly common before MIME even existed. There were clients that would automatically break up uuencode attachments. There were even clients that would attempt to understand the part 1/5, part 2/5, etc. subject lines and re-assemble/uudecode for you. It wasn't to get around size limits per se - as they weren't common at the MTA level yet. It wouldn't have gotten around file system quotas anyway. It was mostly so that large messages wouldn't clog up the queues or monopolize the expensive connections. Anyway, making new protocols/formats take into account and support existing behavior is (or was) the Internet way. _______________________________________________ NOTE: If there is a disclaimer or other legal boilerplate in the above message, it is NULL AND VOID. You may ignore it. Visit http://www.mimedefang.org and http://www.roaringpenguin.com MIMEDefang mailing list [email protected] http://lists.roaringpenguin.com/mailman/listinfo/mimedefang
