[Mimedefang] Rewarding plaintext

[Kelson Vibber]

At 10:24 AM 10/16/2003, David F. Skoll wrote:
>I believe that within 3-5 years, many organizations will ban HTML mail
>(at least, mail that comes from or goes to external addresses.)

If this ever does happen, I can guarantee you that someone will come up 
with another way to add formatting to email.  Why?  Because it's not 
e-telegram, it's e-MAIL.  Because of the metaphor, people expect email to 
be able to do everything postal mail can, at least in the digital realm - 
and that includes sending things other than letters (video clips, photos, 
etc.), and sending letters that are more than just typewriter text.

It's (relatively) easy to convince people that sending .exe files is the 
digital equivalent of sending explosives through the mail.  It's hard to 
convince them that sending their message in blue 15-point Tahoma is the same.

There are people out there who want or (rarely) have a genuine use for mail 
beyond plain text, and if HTML is closed to them, they'll switch to PDF or 
Word, or they'll turn on that option in Outlook that attaches rich text 
only Outlook can receive.  With luck someone will come up with another open 
standard for rich text that's more suitable for email than HTML, and with 
more luck they'll be able to convince Microsoft, Mozilla, Eudora and others 
to support it.

But if the choice is PDF, Word, HTML or Outlook, I'll take the HTML.


Kelson Vibber
SpeedGate Communications <www.speed.net>