X-no-Archive:yes
Something like that (I had to look this up;
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt defines URIs and compares them with URLs
and URNs, which are a subset of URIs). Attachments take an existing
documents, and place another, essentially static copy on the email server,
effectively turning the email server into a file server for as long as the
last recipient chooses to retain that email. Note, this can be a major drag
for road warriors who dial in for email, and may not have an urgent need to
read the document.

If the recipients choose to archive the email, now a third copy lives on
some disk somewhere, requiring administrative overhead such as AV scanning
and backup (also true on the email server, although these should always be
requirements for the original location). Now, which copy of the document is
canonical? Which gets revised? If I email a doc, then notice some incredibly
small error, or need to completely revise it, I would need to email it again
for all recipients to have that document. Am I the only one who has received
email with attachment, followed moments later by another email with an
updated attachment?

Whereas, if I send out a link (and I'm assuming a stable and intelligent
design of network location and access control, which is an awfully big
assumption), that can be fewer bytes than my sig block. There is one
canonical copy (although some folks are compulsive about taking copies, but
this remains their problem), which should always be reachable from that
link. The onus is on the recipient to make sure that they consult the latest
version of the document for anything critical, rather than on me to inform
all recipients that there is now a new version of the document (document
versioning is built into our project management framework).

I can forward an attachment to most anyone with ease, and probably without
detection, if lots of people are emailing attachments. Hey, want a copy of
that major proposal we submitted to that publicly traded corporation? How
about that 36MB Final Fantasy trailer, or that AVI that is more explicit
than what airs on ShowTime at Night? Links to documents on networks are
subject to more granular access control. Also, emailing attachments inures
users to opening them without due consideration. I've known experienced
admins to receive viral attachments from trusted associates that they once
worked with somewhere, so they simply open the attachment without thinking
twice.

I can't say that I much care for attachments. Links avoid many of their
problems. Of course, just because someone sends me a link, does not mean
that the document is safe to open. And links would require me to navigate on
my own to the document in question, to examine its properties or to use
other than the default association to view it.

I encourage project managers to request two shares, one for the project
team, and a second whose access will be extended to supporting members
outside the assigned project team. The second share will have two additional
groups, one read-only, another read-write, for what I trust are obvious
reasons. When the project and its audit are over, all groups are set to have
read-only permission.

That said, I adore Office's ability to save a document as Read-only
recommended, since more people read project docs than edit them. I also very
much enjoy MS's various Office document readers, and will even make them the
default associations for Office docs. I read more of them than I create, and
most of what I access via a link, I'm just reading anyway. The readers load
much, much faster than the full Office products, and there is almost no
chance that I will inadvertently change anything in someone else's doc (I
would have to accidentally open the document for editing first, and then
accidentally change something. I regard such mistakes as a sign that it is
probably time to go home for the day).

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Dirickson (Volt) [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 5:50 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Snow white -- is it just me?

<snip>
What is this "protocol link"? If you mean URIs, I'm not clear on how
they replace attachments.

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