Re: [Fsfe-uk] Administrivia: html duplicates

[Chris Croughton]

On Mon, Jan 28, 2008 at 01:57:43PM +0000, Jon Grant wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> > > >No, I'm running mutt on my home machine, which fetches it using
> > > >fetchmail.  CPU time is not a problem, disk reading time is.
> > >
> > > Are you running on a 286 or so?
> >
> > Did I say "CPU time is not a problem"?  Oh yes, I did.
> >
> > > Your mailbox will most likely largely be
> > > in RAM too.
> >
> > Why would it be in RAM?  It often won't have been touched for hours
> > between the last mail going into it (and that will have been an append
> > so probably won't have read more than a few kB) and me reading it.  A
> > lot of other things will have happened since then.
> 
> My point is just that it's a performance issue, I have no problem
> using Thunderbird or even Outlook on client's machines, so it's a Mutt
> issue, rather than a list issue to accommodate mailers which can't do
> HTML even though email has been delivered as HTML for 10 years.
> Crucially most emails are sent in plain, and HTML, so why not just
> look at that part if you have issue with the HTML part?

Sigh.  Yes, it is a performance issue.  This whole (part of) the thread
was about the size of the HTML part which more than doubles the size of
files/bandwidth/CPU time, not about "can I read it?" (which as has been
pointed out several times be solved by piping it through lynx or
whatever).  How do I read just the non-HTML parts when they are all in
the same file?

> > > These are issues for your client to deal with.. rather than the rest
> > > of the world to optimise for you! (Hopefully I don't sound too
> > > blunt..)
> >
> > Or I can just leave.  Or less drastically dump all HTML messages at the
> > server so I'll just miss people who post that way.
> 
> It would be shame to loose you.., but then wouldn't it be a shame to
> exclude all those Outlook, Yahoo and GMail users we would like to
> incorporate into our movement?

Sigh.  Once again, no one is saying "lose the Outlook, Yahoo and GMail
users".  The existing mailserver converts HTML into text, it has been
said, all us Luddites are saying is keep on doing that.  Anyone reading
the list with any mail client can read text.

Chris C