[ih] IETF relevance (was Memories of Flag Day?)

[Dave Crocker]

On 8/30/2023 10:28 AM, Miles Fidelman via Internet-history wrote:
> What about SMTP - which originated as a late-night hack (that 
> eventually became SMTP)?  As I recall, that was initially announced 
> via a postal mail packet. 

SMTP was rather more than a midnight hack.  E.g., note Jon's involvement 
in an earlier effort:

datatracker.ietf.org

RFC 786: Mail Transfer Protocol: ISI TOPS20 MTP-NIMAIL interface <#>

Mail Transfer Protocol: ISI TOPS20 MTP-NIMAIL interface (RFC 786, July 1981)

🔗 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc786 
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc786>

  And it, too, had extended community discussion.  For example, I 
remember challenging Jon on the way addresses were used, since 
processing through an MTA did not strip the right-most part of the 
domain name.  (I did not yet understand global namespace vs. source 
route...)


d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
mast:@dcrocker at mastodon.social