On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

Hi,

on 04/23/2009 06:39 PM L. V. Lammert wrote:

...

No other list to which I subscribe allows them - is there a good reason to allow attachments? If not, can they be turned off?

We don't allow them. Which does not mean that we filter them. Did you see any major abuse of this?

Henne

I attached about 40K of strace output to a email several days ago. To be honest, I expected it to be stripped off, but I guess not. That may have triggered Lee's question. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Head of EDD Tape Extraction and Processing team Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2009/04/23 09:08 (GMT-0700) John Andersen composed:

L. V. Lammert wrote:

...

No other list to which I subscribe allows them - is there a good reason to allow attachments? If not, can they be turned off?

There are some technical problems that can best be solved by sending certain logs or screenshots. That's why they are tolerated even if not officially allowed or encouraged.

Most other lists I am on prohibit via stripping, which I think is the best approach to sharing large troubleshooting information blocks. There are pastebin-type places logs and images can be uploaded by those who don't either their own hosted web site or have Apache running to host them themselves, with URLs thereto welcomed on the lists. Including images and other files of 20k or more as attachments is what spammers do. It is not welcome, and unduly loads the email system. If you're going to permit attachments, you might as well be permitting HTML too. :-p -- "He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2009-04-23 at 11:50 -0700, John Andersen wrote:

If someone posts logs or images to opensuse in support of seeking help or support it serves the stated purpose of this mailing list.

Some people have limited internet access; some still use a plain modem or other low speed connection. Some pay per megabyte or have a month cap. And not everybody needs looking at those atachments. And some have sent a 300 KB attachment to the list. I think best would have an opensuse.org site where we could leave our attachments, perhaps with an automatic time expire. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAknwvgkACgkQtTMYHG2NR9Vr0QCeOzyeuVJZZTxILnJTT5IfZM6/ zlgAn2y2wYphrED+GQ/N6ITHLbaIT0U9 =E1Hr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* Anders Johansson [04-23-09 15:22]:

kmail supports pop filters which can filter mails based on size

but proactive and of benefit only to kmail users... If attachments are to be (they are) permitted, a reasonable size limit should be imposed by the maillist software and it should be small. Other means of providing verbose, lengthy logs are available, I have hosted a few myself and would again. biggest problem is that most of those needing to provide the logs do not have any idea what is required or about imposing on others ;^( -- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2009/04/23 12:51 (GMT-0700) John Andersen composed:

None of the people lamenting these rare attachments have claimed that they are on slow or expensive connections.

No, but apparently you glossed over or ignored what I consider major points of my previous post, which are: 1-the overall load large attachments put on the email system (and the whole internet) generally, not on specific subscribers on slow or metered connections 2-the fact that every (non-kmail) subscriber has to download individual mails of a size equal in class to the unwanted large size of typical spam One of the reasons anyone subscribes to help lists like this is to avoid places like forums, where bandwidth demand is high by design. Then too, some admins simply have no grasp or concern for basic conservation or economic concepts. Things on this planet have been getting scarce for quite some time. That includes raw materials required to support the internet backbone, and energy sources that keeping it alive requires. -- "He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

2-the fact that every (non-kmail) subscriber has to download individual mails of a size equal in class to the unwanted large size of typical spam

not to mention the "typical" spam these days is tiny in order to get past spam filters - a "study" determined that at an individual level, a non-spam message consumes more resources (the user staring at the screen, etc) than a non-spam message - its only the sheer volume of the spam messages that make them non-"green". -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

...

I use gmane to read the list

Then you're not actually using an email program, you're using a web browser. Ordinary POP accounts used by people running common email software AFAIK don't allow pre-determining what to download or not.

the POP3 spec has a TOP command that allows the MUA to download the top X many bytes of the message. Probably not commonly used these days, but the support for it is there. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:41:22 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

So yes, I'd prefer the server to impose a reasonable size limit. I have seen some around half a megabyte.

Looking at the gmane headers and posts that come through it, it looks like gmane strips the attachments already. So for those who don't want attachments, that would be a viable option. Many mail programs can handle NNTP as well, so they wouldn't even really have to change the program they use in many cases. That said, it does seem reasonable that there'd be a limit of some sort. I can remember doing dialup over a 26.4 Kbps connection and had a friend who loved sending videos to everyone - and using POP (as I did at the time) it was quite annoying to start to pull down my mail and see one message I wanted to ignore/delete because I knew it'd be something I wasn't interested in. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Felix Miata a écrit :

On 2009/04/23 22:00 (GMT) Jim Henderson composed:

...

I use gmane to read the list

Then you're not actually using an email program, you're using a web browser. Ordinary POP accounts used by people running common email software AFAIK don't allow pre-determining what to download or not. you can do the same with thunderbird (just verified) and probably with any decent mail client (I'm sure fetchmail can do this)

jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.org http://news.opensuse.org/2009/04/13/people-of-opensuse-jean-daniel-dodin/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday April 23 2009, Felix Miata wrote:

On 2009/04/23 12:51 (GMT-0700) John Andersen composed:

...

...

1-the overall load large attachments put on the email system (and the whole internet) generally, not on specific subscribers on slow or metered connections

Preposterous! The bulk of email traffic worldwide is spam, for one thing. Secondly, email attachments use only a vanishingly small portion of "the whole internet's" capacity. Thirdly, intelligent quote trimming would more than make up for any reasonable use of attachments.

...

Then too, some admins simply have no grasp or concern for basic conservation or economic concepts. Things on this planet have been getting scarce for quite some time. That includes raw materials required to support the internet backbone, and energy sources that keeping it alive requires. --

While in a very narrow and strict sense information is subject to physical limits that bring it under the influence of economic forces, but for all practical purposes it is not. Load balancing, spare capacity and technological improvements can readily keep supply ahead of demand, and hence keep prices low. Our technology has vast room for improving the ratio of signal bandwidth to energy consumed or matter required. Surely you're aware that the Internet is being increasingly used to stream on-demand video (and not just YouTube quality, either.) This silliness about email attachments is infinitesimal in comparison. (On a lark, I recently watched the 1995 movie "Hackers." The protagonist kids were depicted as all agog over the new 28.8 Kbaud modem one of them had! Woo-hoo!!) Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2009/04/23 15:53 (GMT-0700) Randall R Schulz composed:

On Thursday April 23 2009, Felix Miata wrote:

...

On 2009/04/23 12:51 (GMT-0700) John Andersen composed:

...

1-the overall load large attachments put on the email system (and the whole internet) generally, not on specific subscribers on slow or metered connections

Preposterous!

So being wasteful yourself is in general OK because others waste more? That's no less preposterous.

The bulk of email traffic worldwide is spam, for one thing.

So?

Secondly, email attachments use only a vanishingly small portion of "the whole internet's" capacity.

OK, so you're OK with being and promoting brown instead of green. I'm not.

Thirdly, intelligent quote trimming would more than make up for any reasonable use of attachments.

A very good thing, but not directly related to the points made. If I was a list admin, both (all) attachments and top-posted M$-style full quotes would be fully deleted by filtering.

This silliness about email attachments is infinitesimal in comparison.

Waste is waste. When you have a meaningful choice, choose not waste, choose green. -- "He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Felix Miata wrote:

On 2009/04/23 12:51 (GMT-0700) John Andersen composed:

...

None of the people lamenting these rare attachments have claimed that they are on slow or expensive connections.

No, but apparently you glossed over or ignored what I consider major points of my previous post, which are:

1-the overall load large attachments put on the email system (and the whole internet) generally, not on specific subscribers on slow or metered connections

2-the fact that every (non-kmail) subscriber has to download individual mails of a size equal in class to the unwanted large size of typical spam

What? No they don't. If I read email in thunderbird on any os on a netbook, or in the palmos mail client in my Centro, or in my email servers web interface , or in any email client I think I've ever seen, there is the option to only download headers and in some cases like the Palm, the option to only download N kB per message. If there is a client that lacks this feature and it isn't outlook or outlook express, then it's such a ridiculous minority that it's not wrong to allow everyone else to operate in greater convenience and efficiency and tough luck charlie for that one oddball client. Especially since even that one oddball client would only have a problem if several other factors also applied. They would have to need to follow the opensuse mail list, not be able to use the web interface to it for some reason, and be on a slow or expensive enough link to be a problem, AND the list would have to have started suffering abuse of the feature which it hasn't. In other words, there is simply no problem that requires fixing here. Just like html which you also wrongly accused of being harmful without qualification, it's harmful only when abused and useful if not abused. Further, when not abused, it's actually more bother all around than it's worth trying to prevent it so religiously. Although a plain-text only, no-attachement list is more efficient in one sense, there is also some overhead elsewhere from not having those features available. So it's a matter of which costs more. If I send an email in "html" that has nothing but the html, body and a pre tag, I have benefitted a lot from only adding... 37 bytes to the message, In return I have caused the majority of email clients to display the screen shot or report output or whatever in the only way that will be legible, or at least in the way that will be most clear and waste the least of everyones time and cause the least amount of misinterpretation, and avoided the waste of recipients who simply skip over the message because it looks like scrambled garbage or isn't easy enough to pick apart, or wasting time back & forth telling some in subsequent messages "oh you have to tell your email client to use a fixed width font..." or wasting time writing a paragraph about that in the original post (for every such post all my life...), and the time wasted by the reciepient having to go futz with their client if they were even motivated enough to do so, which they mostly wouldn't be. It's retarded, that's why a standard and a protocol was devised wherein a message can supply metadata within itself to inform the display device how to best render the content. There is absolutely nothing wrong with making use of any metadata facility that's available. Rather the opposite, relying on assumed or expected or default behavior is the definition of poor design and unrobust procedure. Attachements are just more of the same. They can be abused, but so can air or water or... Trying to raise an argument about it for no reason has probably cost everyone more time in the form of posts like this one than any attachement or html content has yet cost anyone. So thanks for that. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org