Bug#198957: ITP: email -- Send email from command line, either via MTA or SMTP, with optional encryption

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Sat, Jun 28, 2003 at 03:33:16PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 28, 2003 at 04:08:05PM +0100, Millis Miller wrote:
> > E) Email does binary attachments and uses MIME (mime types, base64
> > encoding) to "attach" and send them with the message.  You can't do this
> > by doing what is described above.  You can UUEncode it, but A LOT of
> > mail clients don't support UUEncoding anymore.  Plus, you can attach
> > multiple binary files with email, not just one UUEncoded file.  For
> > instance:
> >         uuencode file.bin | gpg --clearsign | mail ....
> 
> OTOH, the above features seem useful.

mime-construct does multiple mime attachments.  it does an excellent job, a
very useful and versatile tool.

it doesn't do uuencode, but a) uuencode is deprecated and should be avoided,
and b) that's easy enough to do anyway:

   (for i in file1.bin file2.bin file3.bin ; uuencode $i ; echo ; done) | \
   gpg --clearsign | mail ...



FWIW, i don't think that mere duplication of existing functionality is a reason
for a package not to be included in debian(*), but "email" is a really bad name
for this program and this package.  it's far too generic.


(*) the only criteria for inclusion in debian are:

1. is it free?
2. is someone willing to package and maintain it?

craig