don't like HTML email? here's your fix.

[Simon Bowring]

On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 13:43:27 +0100, David Gaskill wrote:

>On my 56 K modem the difference in cost to download an Ascii e-mail 
>and an html formatted e-mail would be a tiny fraction of the cost of the 
>cup of coffee I am drinking as I compose this. 
Fine, your calculations are absolutely correct if and only if you only 
ever receive one single HTML email ever!  

i.e. I think you're the one using flawed logic!

>The bandwidth and standards issue seems to be something of a holy war 
>rather than a logical argument.
What is illogical about: "HTML mails are bigger and therefore consume 
more bandwidth"? 

What is illogical about trying to make users (and more importantly 
rogue and irresponisble mail program authors like MS and NS) comply 
with the standards that allow inter-working on the net?  

These authors are consciously and deliberately trying to gain market
position by implementing features beyond any standards, so that people 
will use their product in preference to another. But "their product" 
is typically only available under Windows (or a restricted set of 
platforms), thus breaking any chance of proper standards-conformant 
inter-working between people (unless they run Windows, and use 
Outlook).

This leave competitors like Blueprint et al in the impossible 
position of having market pressure put on them by consumers to 
implement broken non-standardised features - how are they going
to design what features are required without a standard to act as
a definition to work from?

Sadly, anyone can (and quite a few do) chuck out any old junk as an 
email (or ftp, or news etc) program.  There are no conformancy tests 
and associated "badge" for such products, as there are for compilers, 
low-level network protocols and such things as Java etc.  This is
a shame!

This argument is only happening because both MS and NS have implemented 
a series of embrace-and-extend features (in email, news and browsers), 
simply to fill their own coffers and "spoil" their competitors' products. 
Of course it's coincidental that the bulk of these company's users are not 
very computer literate and would never know what features are standard or 
not, and so forgivably they use them, unkowingly furthering the cause 
of MS or NS, and helping to splinter the internet into different 
communities with different capabilities.

So, yes, this is a "holy war" - it's about allowing the internet 
to continue to be goverened by open standards, not dictated by MS, 
NS, IBM or any other single corporation, so that even non-windows 
users may use the internet (shocking I know!). It's even about 
non-windows users being able to talk to windows users (Huh? why would
they want to do that?).  It's about the internet being hardware 
and software *agnostic*. i.e. it's about standards!

Many of us have seen MS use the same techniques to create a
virtual monopoly in Word Processors, office apps, and desktop
operating systems, despite often delivering inferior technology.
We don't wan't the internet to go the same way, and we're not 
going down without a fight!

>(Next perhaps "TCPIP is an abomination - all right-thinking citizens use Morse"). 
Would that be a bit more of your "logic"?

Simon