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Added some introduction text.
author markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
date Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:46:18 +0100
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1 .H0 "Introduction
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2 .P
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3 This chapter describes the background of the topics in this thesis.
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4 General knowledge of electronic mail is assumed.
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6 .H1 "What is MH?
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7 .P
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8 MH is an electronic mail system, originating in the RAND Corporation.
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9 Historically, it had been a all-in-one mail system, with Mail Transfer
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10 Agent (MTA) and Mail User Agent (MUA).
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11 Later, when electronic mail systems changed, Mail Submission Agent (MSA)
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12 and Mail Retrieval Agent (MRA) facilities were added.
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13 The MTA became less important, whereas the MUA became even more the
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14 central part.
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15 .P
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16 First of all, MH is a style of a mail handling system.
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17 It had started as a design proposal, not as an implementation, and
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18 had in spirit remained so. This is similar to Unix, which much less
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19 is a specific software product, as it is a style of system design.
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20 MH is a toolchest of programs, modelled after the Unix toolchest,
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21 and it is a specific mail storage format, like Unix has its file system
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22 formats.
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23
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24 .H1 "History of MH
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25 .P
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26 MH is an electronic mail system, originating in the RAND Corporation.
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27 In 1977, Norman Shapiro and Stockton Gaines had proposed the design
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28 of a new mail handling system, called ``Mail Handler'' (MH) for RAND,
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29 to superseed their ``Mail System'' (MS).
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30 Two years later, in 1979, XXX took the proposal and implemented a
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31 prototype of MH. It proved successful and replaced MS thereafter.
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32 .P
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33 A decade later, the University of California had started to use MH.
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34 They also took over its development and pushed MH forward.
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35 This had been the time when the Internet appeared, Berkeley implemented
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36 the TCP stack, and Sendmail was born. MH had often contained the first
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37 implementation of new RFCs.
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38 .P
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39 In the nineties, MH had been moved into the public domain, making it
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40 attractive to Free Software developers. The Internet had started to become
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41 mainstream and in 1997, Richard Coleman initiated the ``New Mail Handler''
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42 (nmh), a fork of MH. He intended to modernize MH, improve its MIME
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43 capabilities, and this should be done openly within the Internet
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44 community. Today, nmh almost completely replaced the original MH.
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46 .H1 "How the Fun Began
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47 .P
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48 I have discovered nmh in XXX. I used to use mutt, like many
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49 command-line-attracted Unix users. Nmh had convinced me conceptually
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50 at once. Unfortunately, setting it up to a convenient state became a
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51 tendious task. Learning its different model of email handling had,
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52 in contrast, been relatively easy. Learning to use MH if you are used
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53 to monolithic mail clients is like learning vi if you are used to
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54 modeless editors.
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55 Once having nmh set up, using it was joy because of its conceptional
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56 elegance and scripting capabilities, but on the other hand it was
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57 inconvenient in handling attachments, non-ASCII character encodings,
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58 and similar stuff. I found it wrong to require more and more scripts
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59 and configuration to have it act the expected way. In being a
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60 software developer, I wanted to improve the situation.
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61 .P
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62 In Spring 2010, I asked on the nmh-workers mailing list for the
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63 possibility to have a Google Summer of Code project on nmh. Being a
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64 student, this appeared attractive to me. Eventually, it had not been
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65 possible, but the nmh community started to move. In these months
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66 nmh's future was discussed and I became part of a ``Does nmh need an
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67 MTA'' discussion. There, my opinion differed from the opinion of
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68 most others.
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69 .P
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70 As it hadn't been possible to work on nmh in a way that would be
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71 accepted as part of my official studies, I needed to get my credit
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72 points in some other way. But half a year later I was back. Starting
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73 in Summer 2010, I took one semester off to travel through Latin America.
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74 Within this time, I needed to do practical computer work for three
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75 months. Richard Sandelman, an active nmh user, made it possible for
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76 me to work on nmh during this time. Juan Granda, from Santiago del
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77 Estero in Argentina, provided a computer and Internet connection.
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78 Within these three month, I became familiar with nmh's code base and
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79 its community. I learned how things work. Quickly it was obvious that
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80 I wouldn't succeed to improve on the non-ASCII character encoding
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81 problems, as this is one of the most intricate parts of the system.
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82 Instead I improved code as I read through it. I found minor bugs in
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83 the code and could improve the documentation. When I started with
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84 larger code changes, I had to discover that the community's wish for
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85 compatibility was stronger than its wish for convenient
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86 out-of-the-box setups. This lead to long discussions, again. Finally,
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87 I understand their point of view, but it's not mine.
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88 At the end of my three-month project, I had became familiar with
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89 nmh's code base and community, I had improved both a bit, and I still
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90 was convinced that I wanted to go on with it.
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91 .P
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92 Another half a year later, I needed a topic for my master's thesis.
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93 Now it was clear: I wanted to work on nmh. No, not exactly nmh,
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94 because I had accepted that the nmh community has different goals
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95 than I have. The won't be much progress if generally different opinions
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96 lead to long discussions. After careful thought, I had decided to
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97 start an experimental version of nmh. I wanted to go my way and see
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98 where it would lead to. Time would tell if it would prove successful.
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99 Nmh would hardly be hurt by my work, but could profit from my
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100 experiences later.
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101 .P
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102 When I started to work on mmh, my experimental version, in Fall 2011,
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103 activity in nmh rose suddenly. While I was working on mmh, XXX were
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104 working on nmh. After long years of idleing, nmh was actively
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105 developed again. That was a good sign. My own work went in parallel
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106 and unrelated. Today, my experimental version became de facto a fork.
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107 The mail storage, however, is still compatible.