Subject: RE: REVISED draft-ietf-fax-eifax-08.txt

From: Dan Wing <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 8:03:54 -0800

>>So, if the primary intent is to elicit a capabilities report using the new
>>DSN or MDN reporting extension defined in "reporting-extensions", the best
>>way to elicit this is to send a TIFF file that one does not believe the
>>receiver will be able to process.
>
>Or, better still, send the image you would prefer to send if the receiver
>could process it, and fall back later if it turns out to be unusable?

Sure, we could, but -eifax- doesn't permit this today.  If we all 
think this is a good change, we'll have to change -eifax-.  However, 
note that this will not work with existing mailers which cannot
generate a "I couldn't process the attachment" MDN.  

Note this is "cannot generate", not "will not generate" -- existing
MUAs (Eudora, Netscape, etc.) have no mechanism to indicate an
attachment failed viewing/processing by its associated viewer. 

As an example, my image/tiff which contained the base64 string
"YADDAYADDA" caused absolutely no "failed to process" MDNs from anyone
on this mailing list. 

What this means is that the indication of "could not process" will 
only come from -eifax- compliant systems, not from any system running 
Eudora, Netscape, MSOutlook, pine, elm, or the hundreds of other types 
of MUAs that exist today.

-Dan Wing

---

From: "Larry Masinter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:26:30 PST

> generate a "I couldn't process the attachment" MDN.

You *can* send "the image you would prefer to send if the receiver
could process it" along with a minimum S profile, using
multipart/alternative.
I don't see why this isn't permitted...

Larry