Re: URL paper final edits

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Date: Mon, 11 Oct 93 12:20:33 +0100
From: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@www3.cern.ch>
Message-id: <9310111120.AA00625@www3.cern.ch>
To: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: Re: URL paper final edits
Cc: uri@bunyip.com, www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Reply-To: timbl@nxoc01.cern.ch

>From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
>Date: 	Fri, 8 Oct 1993 15:20:18 PDT
>
>mailto: followed by an internet address isn't adequate to reference
>document objects that require more text to be sent to an external  
mail
>server. I'm thinking of those things that you can call out with
>access-type=mail-server
>
>where there is a 'phantom body'.
>
>Is this a totally different kind of URL?


	Yes.  It does not represent a document to be RETRIEVED
	by mail (mail is not a retrieval protocol _really_).
	The URL represents the mail address.
	Sending a message to a mail address is the equivalent
	function to posting an article to a newsgroup, or linking
	an annotation to a document.  There is a new object created
	and an association made with an existing object.
	A minor difference is that you can't read a mail address,
	though you can read a newsgroup or an annotated document.

	In fact, of copurse, a good client can do quite a lot to
	_represent_ the mail address, with some kind of
	icon and perhaps a list of messages the user has in her
	some mailboxes which were from or to that mail address.
	
	A current implementation (Cello) puts up a window
	for writing messages to the mail address.
	
	Tim

>================================================================
>>From RFC 1341:
>
>   7.3.3.4 The "mail-server" access-type
>
>The "mail-server" access-type indicates that the actual body is
>available from a mail server. The mandatory parameter for this
>access-type is:
>
>  SERVER -- The email address of the mail server
>  from which the actual body data can be obtained.
>
>Because mail servers accept a variety of syntax, some of which is
>multiline, the full command to be sent to a mail server is not
>included as a parameter on the content-type line. Instead, it may be
>provided as the "phantom body" when the content-type is
>message/external-body and the access-type is mail-server.
>
>Note that MIME does not define a mail server syntax.  Rather, it
>allows the inclusion of arbitrary mail server commands in the  
phantom
>body. Implementations should include the phantom body in the body of
>the message it sends to the mail server address to retrieve the
>relevant data.
>
>
>