A new Request for Comments is now available in online RFC libraries.


        RFC 1495:

        Title:      Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies 
        Author:     H. Alvestrand, S. Kille, R. Miles, M. Rose, &
                    S. Thompson
        Mailbox:    Harald.Alvestrand@delab.sintef.no,
                    S.Kille@ISODE.COM, rsm@spyder.ssw.com,
                    mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us, sjt@gateway.ssw.com  
        Pages:      11
        Characters: 20,071
        Updates:    1327


Recently, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) developed a
document called, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions" or MIME (RFC
1341).  The title is actually misleading.  MIME defines structure for
Internet message bodies.  It is not an extension to STD 11, RFC 822.
Independently of this, the International standards community developed
a different framework in 1984.  This framework is known as the OSI
Message Handling System (MHS) or sometimes X.400.

Since the introduction of X.400(84), there has been work ongoing for
defining mappings between MHS and RFC 822.  The most recent work in
this area is RFC 1327, which focuses primarily on translation of
envelope and headers.  This document is complimentary to RFC 1327 as
it focuses on translation of the message body.  The mappings defined
are largely symmetrical with respect to MIME and MHS structuring
semantics, although the MIME semantics are somewhat richer.  In order
to provide for reversible transformations, MHS heading extensions are
used to carry the additional MIME semantics.

This is now a Proposed Standard Protocol.

This RFC specifies an IAB standards track protocol for the Internet
community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.
Please refer to the current edition of the "IAB Official Protocol
Standards" for the standardization state and status of this protocol.
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Joyce K. Reynolds
USC/Information Sciences Institute