# Re: Another snapshot of the URL document.

Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl
Mon, 04 Jul 1994 10:04:23 +0200

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    Message-Id: <9407040804.AA01818=guido@voorn.cwi.nl>

    To: hoymand@gate.net (Dirk Herr-Hoyman)

    Subject: Re: Another snapshot of the URL document.

    In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 02 Jul 1994 07:40:03 MDT."

                 <199407021140.HAA90808@inca.gate.net>

    From: Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl

    Date: Mon, 04 Jul 1994 10:04:23 +0200

(on the mailto: URL format)

> So, is this an interface to SMTP
> mail or is it something else that doesn't have anything to do with SMTP
> necessarily. Since you have carefully noted ports and RFCs that pertain in
> other URLs, this seems out of place to me.

The way I understand this, and would like to see it used, and the way
it is supported by at least on WWW client (Lynx), is that selecting a
reference to such a URL drops you into your favorite mail program and
allws you to send a message to the given address. This is useful,
otherwise a cut-n-paste job would be needed to transfer the email
address into the mailer.

It would be totally wrong to redefile 'mailto:' to mean an SMTP
interface -- it represents an email address, not a delivery mechanism.

In a sense, 'mailto:' is similar to 'telnet:' -- once you've selected
such a URL, you essentially leave the WWW context and start
interactive at a different level. Unlike most other URL types, these
URL's don't refer to files that can be mechanically retrieved. But
since there is a genuine need to include email addresses and telnet
session parameters in WWW documents, they deserve some level of
standardization.

--Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl>
URL: <http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Guido.van.Rossum.html>

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