Harald Alvestrand wrote:
There were no alternatives to SMTP on an IP network until
Instant Messaging came along.
not since X.400 over X.25 died, no. I thought you were older than that....
And there were all of the individual providers that Michael cited, such as MCI
Mail.
>>> but can be seen in IM, and may likely show up in other forms of
>>> communication. Much of this is simply the nature of software.
>>
>> It has nothing to do with software and everything to do
>> with architecture. IM networks have less problems because
>> all the participants share a relationship with the IM
>> service providers.
It *is* interesting that the diversity of disconnected email services was viewed
as a basic problem to solve, whereas most of the Internet user community does
not seem to feel the same pressure to unify IM.
Hmmm. Maybe IM satisfies a different set of needs than does email. So we had
better be a bit cautious about trying to generalize implications between them.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
_______________________________________________
Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf