Re: Fwd: [ga] Why so long

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2002-07-12 10:32:45 -0500, Don Brown wrote:

[inserted '>' character]

>">From a slightly different perspective, a party can currently obtain
>service from several different sources (SnapNames, included) and there
>is competition between them. If ICANN approves WLS, then there will be
>only one source. So, in that scope your statement is true, since ICANN
>would be getting in the way of free enterprise and not fostering
>competition."

It's a very common problem which has its origins with the "mbox"  
mail folder format first introduced in Version 6 AT&T Unix.  In  
these mail folders, messages are stored as plain text, separated by  
lines like this one:

	From owner-ga@dnso.org  Sat Jul 13 10:30:00 2002

Of course, when such a line occurs within a message, mail reading 
software would get confused, and would detect a message separator in 
the wrong place.

For that reason, it's still common to escape such lines by  
prepending a ">" characer in front of them.  

(With MIME's quoted-printable or flowed text, you can play other  
tricks to avoid the problem without changing what's presented to the 
user.)

-- 
Thomas Roessler                          http://log.does-not-exist.org/
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