From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] /n/smtp
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Date: Wed,  1 Nov 2000 15:47:31 -0500
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	russ told me that it would serve no purpose, but i
	'counter attacked' :-) importing it off the firewall.
	a free proxy; code running on the the firewall with
	9P/styx gluing it to wherever it's needed.

even after all this discussion,
i still don't think it serves any purpose.
the data only flows in one direction, and
only in one format.  file servers are good
for handling interactive resources or 
resources with complex presentations.
mail delivery is neither.

people have pointed out that it's like 
sendmail -t.  so have upas/marshal -t,
which i agree would be useful.

want to get the service from a firewall?
instead of marshal -t, do rx firewall marshal -t.

to me, it feels a lot more like a good
pipeline piece than a full-blown filesystem.

russ