1 An Overview of the Elm Mail System 2 ---------------------------------- 3 4Introduction 5 6 This file discusses the functionality of the Elm mail system 7and explains some of the motivation behind the various features. 8 91. What is Elm? 10 11 Currently on UNIX, there seems to be a preponderance of line-oriented 12software. This is most unfortunate as most of the software on UNIX tends to 13be pretty darn hard to use! I believe that there is more than a slight 14correlation between the two, and, since I was myself having problems using 15"mailx" with high-volume mail, I created a new mail system. 16 17 In the lingo of the mail guru, Elm is a "User Agent" system, 18 it's designed to run with "sendmail" or "/bin/rmail" or any 19other UNIX Mail Transport Agent (according to what's on your system) 20and is a full replacement of programs like "/bin/mail" and "mailx". 21The system is more than just a single program, however, and includes 22programs like "frm" to list a 'table of contents' of your mail, and 23"printmail" to quickly paginate mail files (to allow 'clean' 24printouts). 25 262. What's New about Elm? 27 28 The most significant difference between Elm and earlier mail 29systems is that Elm is screen-oriented. Upon further use, however, 30users will find that Elm is also quite a bit easier to use, and quite a 31bit more "intelligent" about sending mail and so on. For example, say 32you're on "usenet" and receive a message from someone on the Internet. 33The sender also "cc'd" another person on Internet. With Elm you can 34simply G)roup reply and it will build the correct return addresses. 35 36 There are lots of subtleties like that in the program, most of 37which you'll probably find when you need them. 38 393. What systems does it work on? 40 41 The Elm development group uses almost every UNIX system out 42there between all of its volunteers. Elm runs on USL System V, BSD, 43SunOS, Apollo, UTS, Pyramid and Xenix and should run on almost any UNIX 44systems without any modifications (if there turn out to be 45modifications, please notify the Elm Development Group as soon as 46possible). 47 484. Does it obey existing mail standards? 49 50 Yes! That's another of the basic reasons the program was 51originally written! To ensure that the date field, the "From:" line 52and so on were all added in the correct format. The program is 100% 53correct according to the RFC-822 electronic mail header protocol 54guide. 55 565. What were the main motivating factors for Dave to write Elm? 57 58 The first two I've already mentioned, but here's a (somewhat 59partial) list; 60 61 - To have a mail system that exploited the CRT instead of 62 assuming I'm on a teletype. 63 64 - To have a mailer that was 100% correct when dealing with 65 network mail (i.e. RFC-822). 66 67 - To create a system that needed no documentation for the 68 casual user, but was still powerful enough and sophisticated 69 enough for a mail expert. 70 71 - To write a "significant" piece of software as a learning 72 experience (I admit it!) 73 74 - To find out how reasonable it is to try to modify a program 75 to meet the expectations of the users, rather than vice-versa. 76 77 - To basically correct some of the dumb things that the current 78 mailers do, like letting you send mail to addresses that it 79 could trivially figure out are going to result in 'dead.letter' 80 81 - To tie in intimately with the pathalias program output, and 82 allow users to specify machine!user or user@machine and have 83 the COMPUTER do the work of figuring out addresses... 84 (Note: As of 2.4, this has been removed from Elm, as routing 85 mail transports are now readily available for all UNIX systems). 86 876. Is it reliable? 88 89 The mailer, in various incarnations, has logged literally 90thousands upon thousands of hours without any problems that aren't 91now corrected. As new problems arise they're dealt with in as 92rapid a manner as possible... 93 947. Disclaimers 95 96 The author of this program will deny all liability for any 97damages, either real or imagined, due to the execution of this program 98or anything related to either the software or the system. Furthermore, 99the entire system and all source within, including the presentation 100screens and commands, are legally copyrighted by the author, and while 101they can be used, and abused, for public domain systems, it will be in 102violation of the law if used in systems or programs sold for profit. 103 104 By installing the mailer or even extracting it from the network, 105you are agreeing to the above disclaimer. 106 1078. Finally 108 109 I think it's a good program, and I can cite at least 75 people 110who would (begrudgingly, I'm sure) agree. You should most certainly 111install the program and try it!! 112 113 114 -- Dave Taylor 115 taylor@intuitive.com 116 -- Syd Weinstein, Coordinator 117 Elm Development Group 118 elm@dsi.com 119 120Original: March 13th, 1986 121Modified: October 3th, 1992 122 Syd Weinstein, Coordinator 123 Elm Development Group 124 elm@dsi.com 125