Subject: RE: Last Call: SMTP Service Extension for Content Negotiation to Proposed Standard

From: Gerry Sancataldo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 09:31:46 +1000

Hi all,

I am involved in the technical support/ training area for fax and internet
fax devices and would just like to add that typically a message/transaction
is directed to one recipient only.
(I make no judgement as to other services that may piggyback on SMTP and if
they will typically include multiple recipients).

As the number of Multi-function devices supporting Internet fax move to an
increasing number of options (colour copiers etc supporting Internet fax) I
suspect that the onus should be on the recipient client to confirm its
capabilities, not the server.

I make no judgement as to other services that may piggyback on SMTP and if
they will typically include multiple recipients.

Cheers,

Gerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert A. Rosenberg [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, 4 July 2002 6:17 AM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Last Call: SMTP Service Extension for Content Negotiation
to Proposed Standard

At 18:09 -0700 on 07/02/2002, Dave Crocker wrote about Re: Last Call:
SMTP Service Extension for Content Negot:

>  >  If, on the other
>>hand, messages tailored for a each recipient is going to be the norm, then
>>VRFY is the correct approach.
>
>
>If the sender is concerned about optimizing for each recipient, they can
>get that effect by reducing to a single RCPT-TO per DATA.
>
>So it is not as pretty as the separate command, but it permits roughly the
>same mode of operation.

This "one address per copy" approach insures that there will ALMOST
ALWAYS be wasted processing and message uploading in any situation
where knowing the capabilities prior to message transmission would
have allowed the piggybacking of additional addresses onto a copy of
the message (IOW: 5 message versions going to a total of 25 addresses
instead of 25 copies each addressed to one of the 25 addresses saving
thus saving 20 message transmissions). You need to decide what the
trade-offs are between minimal number of separate copies (with its
processing overhead) and the one message copy per address (with its
wasting of bandwidth and throttling of delivery speed due to queuing
of messages that could have been passed to the server as part of a
prior transmission).

---

From: "Robert A. Rosenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 14:08:38 -0400

At 09:31 +1000 on 07/04/2002, Gerry Sancataldo wrote about RE: Last
Call: SMTP Service Extension for Content Negot:

>Hi all,
>
>I am involved in the technical support/ training area for fax and
>internet fax devices and would just like to add that typically a
>message/transaction is directed to one recipient only.
>
>(I make no judgement as to other services that may piggyback on SMTP
>and if they will typically include multiple recipients).
>
>As the number of Multi-function devices supporting Internet fax move
>to an increasing number of options (colour copiers etc supporting
>Internet fax) I suspect that the onus should be on the recipient
>client to confirm its capabilities, not the server.
>
>I make no judgement as to other services that may piggyback on SMTP
>and if they will typically include multiple recipients.
>
>
>Cheers,
>
>Gerry

I think you might be looking at the issue from a inaccurate
prospective. What is being attempted is to port the "Fax Broadcast"
Scenario to delivering the Fax via the Internet as opposed to POTS.
In the POTS Broadcast method, each copy is a separate connection and
thus any reformatting is done due to the Connect Handshake
Capabilities exchange. This tailoring capability needs to be
preserved. If you feel (or have some data to support) that only an
insignificant number of the total Fax Volume are Broadcast
(multi-addressed) Faxes, then that might support your initial
statement.

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 10:13:37 -0400

> message/transaction is directed to one recipient only.
In part, though, that's because fax machines have limited UIs; they may 
support one-to-many, but they don't usually make it easy.  Fax software 
typically has better UI support for one-to-many, and I believe 
fax-over-IP would lead to software displacing fax machines. 
 Fax-over-POTS software doesn't help if you don't have POTS at your 
desk, which many business users don't; fax-over-IP software would open 
things up more.  So fax-over-IP would probably lead to an increase in 
the prevalence over one-to-many.

-- 
/========================================================\
|John Stracke                    |Principal Engineer     |
[email-masked]   |Incentive Systems, Inc.|
|http://www.incentivesystems.com |My opinions are my own.|
|========================================================|
|This is the .sig that says... Ni!                       |
\========================================================/