Fellow Mime-punks, Perry said:
Naturally the idea is old -- I explicitly mentioned NeXT mail, didn't I? The point is that this is an open, non-proprietary, and STANDARDIZED framework for doing arbitrary recursive encapsulation of data in EMail.
Well, if "open, non-proprietary, and STANDARDIZED frameworks" are always going to lag behind by several years, then I say the general population will be better off by having entities such as Microsoft or ETH decree their own "standards" and let the market decide to follow them, or be niche players and imitate them. Maybe I have yet to see the value of MIME, especially on mailing lists such as this one. So far I've just seen hundreds of messages about how cool it will be, one MIME encapsulated gif signature, one screwed up MIME post, several "faux MIME" ascii messages (definitely no multimedia extensions, just ascii). Lots of exhortation on how it would be in my best interest to spend hours to upgrade to MIME compatible readers so I can read the same mail I get now, plus the 0.01% MIME messages that drift through (none of which exhibit the superior features MIME allows). I think the point Tim is making is that at the current time, our lives are not made easier or enriched by "MIME". If I want point and click spreadsheet opening, I can use other systems that have worked for 5 years or more, with apps that are already configured and easier to use.