Re: Mail addresses as URLs (clarification)

Marc Andreessen (marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu)
Wed, 12 May 93 13:21:50 -0500

I previously wrote:
> >some of the more cryptic addresses (e.g., gatewayed through Sprintmail
> >-- anyone seen one of those yet? strange stuff...) that are starting
> >to pop up? Sure, there can be mappings established, but why bother?

....which apparently caused some misunderstandings. My point, which I
thought was clear, was that email addresses, including
Sprintmail/X.400 addresses, should be left alone and not arbitrarily
rearranged as part of a 'mailto' or 'smtp' URL. That is,
marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu should be:

mailto:marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu

and not:

mailto://ncsa.uiuc.edu/marca

and a Sprintmail address like (just to make one up)
/PN=joe.blow/FOO=bar/BLAZ=blech/ARGH=urgh@sprint.com should be:

mailto:/PN=joe.blow/FOO=bar/BLAZ=blech/ARGH=urgh@sprint.com

and not:

mailto://sprint.com//PN=joe.blow/FOO=bar/BLAZ=blech/ARGH=urgh

or:

mailto://sprint.com/ARGH=urgh/BLAZ=blech/FOO=bar/PN=joe.blow

or whatever.

Again, my point was: email addresses (including Sprintmail/X.400)
GOOD, rearranging email addresses BAD.

Hope that clears things up.

Marc

--
Marc Andreessen
Software Development Group
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu