ietf-nntp FAQ Extension to NNTP

[Jacob Palme]

On Sat, 24 Aug 1996, Rich Salz wrote:

> >MIME has an external reference format,
> 
> NNTP does not rely/use/need/refer-to MIME.
> 
> I think we should keep it that way.
> 
> This does not mean that the "messages" returned by GROUPDATA
> cannot refer to such things.  If all newsreaders knew the external-body
> type.

Why should NNTP not use MIME?

MIME supplies a lot of very useful features like embedded
images, messages in HTML format, sending large images by
only sending the URL instead of the whole file, etc. NNTP at
present uses non-standardized methods for images in messages
and does not allow messages in HTML format or sending URL-s
instead of the text of large binaries.

Either NNTP will have to develop its own standards for doing
this, or use MIME. Since it is becoming more and more common
that the same client is used for both e-mail and network news,
it would be very advantageous if the format is as similar as
possible in e-mail and in network news.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Palme <jpalme at dsv.su.se> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme