-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <9412161424.AA02172@snark.imsi.com>, you wrote:
Timothy C. May says:
My issue has not been with MIME as a transport mechanism, but non-ASCII content, which clearly most folks can't read.
Far from clear, Tim. Last time I checked, almost no one I communicated with regularly was using a machine without a pixmapped display. That means that all standing in the way of them being able to read non-ascii is the right font sitting on disk, and a program that groks it.
The right font on disk and a program that groks it. Aye, there's the rub. What makes this debate at once so fascinating and so frustrating is that both sides are correct. Yes, MIME is the standard that has emerged for exchanging non-ascii-text data via email, and yes it's a damned good one, properly implemented. And yes, anyone with the resources to do so ought to connect to their Internet service provider through a SLIP connection and be able to move through the Web with a good graphical browser and view their mail through their MIME-compliant mail program. If you can do it, then it is without a doubt the way to go. But at the same time Tim is right, too. SLIP connections, quality Web browsers, and MIME-compliant email packages are the high end of Net access today. They demand either an investment of money (intelligently spent) or an investment of effort to get the stuff up and running and to get the know-how needed to do so. Either of these can be more than many people who are now Internet users can afford. I think the people who are berating Tim for his apparent stubbornness should stop and think for a bit. It's not a simple matter of "We're right, so Tim must be wrong." The people who can look at the matter and see how the MIME advocates and Tim May are both right, without seeing a contradiction, will have a broader, deeper insight into the underlying problems, and be able to come up with solutions that reach farther. | For me, to be a feminist is to answer the Alan Bostick | question "Are women human?" with a yes. abostick@netcom.com | finger for PGP public key | Katha Pollitt, REASONABLE CREATURES Key fingerprint: | 50 22 FB 46 41 A3 17 9D F7 33 FF E1 4E 1C 89 79 +legal_kludge=off -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQB1AgUBLvH6FOVevBgtmhnpAQG/5AL/V8/wQC4ZVykdstm2hz3yutSi21CqXRQV +myk42dAO0+4YSgV1pSPEwSrfni2NKZa+HE9bzF8Cl2c+In5eb1hdkCYkfn3VlzV GsJyPBjAcUrHD626Wm18iBEYiD3cnDT9 =9vp0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----