# Re: Mail URL (was Re: Another snapshot of the URL document)

Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl
Tue, 05 Jul 1994 18:07:26 +0200

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    Message-Id: <9407051607.AA09987=guido@voorn.cwi.nl>

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

    Subject: Re: Mail URL (was Re: Another snapshot of the URL document)

    In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 05 Jul 1994 08:22:08 MDT."

                 <199407051222.IAA76382@inca.gate.net>

    From: Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl

    Date: Tue, 05 Jul 1994 18:07:26 +0200

> I understand that mailto represents only a recipient address. And part of
> my original message was to get some clarity on exactly what we are trying
> to use it for. But, a second point was that there are some resources
> available ONLY by e-mail servers, and for these mailto is typically
> inadequate. Only mail responders, those addresses typically look like
> info@domainname, would work. Most e-mail servers, such as listserv, work
> by using a command either in the Subject or body of the message.
>
> This appears to me to be a hole in the URL specification. Even though this
> type of a URL would not act synchronously (i.e., you wouldn't get a
> document back directly in a Web client from a tcp connection), it
> nonetheless would be a means of specifying how to retrieve a resource. As
> this draft of the URL spec is more clearly taking the "high ground" and not
> tieing itself to any particular client scheme (such as WWW, in particular),
> I feel it is an appropriate time to consider the inclusion of such a URL.
> Call it mail, if you like, so as to distinguish it from mailto.

I think MIME type message/external-body has the semantics you want --
now all you need is a syntax to put it into a URL. It has an option
server=<email-address> and the "phantom body" of the message is sent
to that server. I seem to remember that this has been discussed
before (Dan?) but can't remember the details. My proposal would look
like:

URL:mailserver://<emailaddress>/<line>/<line>/...

where each <line> is part of the body. Or, if somebody knows a mail
server that requires some info in the mail headers,

URL:mailserver://<emailaddress>/<hdr>:<text>/<hdr>:<text>//<line>/<line>/...

i.e. use a // to start the message body -- if no header lines needed,
it degenerates to

URL:mailserver://<emailaddress>//<line>/<line>/...

I like the name "mailserver" because it's pretty obvious that this is
automatic mail to a server program. Note that there are security
considerations, e.g. it would be an easy way to make innocent users
send hate mail to a certain address. Therefore, the client software
should show the complete message and ask permission to send it.

--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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