I believe some good points are being made here, but not all which can be
associated with a single 'technology', i.e. MIME or WAIS. I believe this is
the natural product of trying to get 'mail' to be all things to all
applications.
Mail as a transport for information versus mail as the characteristic of
information is what I believe to be partly to blame. When I receive mail (the
characteristic stuff), I may have little control over the content-type, and
therefore may have to take what I get. On the other hand, when I am using mail
(the transport stuff) to request information, I ought to be able to provide
some insight into what I can handle on the receiving end. It would be nice to
be able to tell the world what I would like (e.g. EPS, MIME or ASCII, please)
before I know whether I will ever get mail from them, but this seems excessive
using current technologies.
So as not to wear out my welcome, let me finish by saying that I believe there
are solutions, but they will not be singular; there will be several pieces
that inter-relate such that, when used together, provide what is needed. It
will be much easier to deal with the issues separately, with an understanding
of the inrer-relationship(s), than try and deal with them as one.
As for 'inflammatory hogwash', isn't that how they get pink pigs?
-- Dennis Kavanaugh Senior Systems Analyst Corporate Office Systems and PB/1