BSD 4_3 development

Work on file usr/src/usr.lib/sendmail/doc/abstract

Synthesized-from: CSRG/cd1/4.3

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+Here it is, on the fly.....
+
+       SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router
+
+Routing mail through a heterogenous internet presents many new
+problems.  Among the worst of these is that of address mapping.
+Historically, this has been handled on an ad hoc basis.  However,
+this approach has become unmanageable as internets grow.
+
+Sendmail acts a unified "post office" to which all mail can be
+submitted.  Address interpretation is controlled by a production
+system, which can parse both domain-based addressing and old-style
+ad hoc addresses.  Mail is then dispatched to an outgoing mailer.
+This system can expand trivially.  The production system is powerful
+enough to rewrite addresses in the message header to conform to the
+standards of a number of common target networks, including old
+(NCP/RFC733) Arpanet, new (TCP/RFC822) Arpanet, UUCP, and Phonenet.
+Sendmail is not intended to perform user interface functions or
+final delivery.  Sendmail also implements an SMTP server, message
+queueing, and aliasing.
+
+This is approach is unique in that it allows external compatibility
+with the old practices, and tries to make the mail system conform to
+the user instead of the other way around.  Although sendmail is not
+intended to circumvent new standards, it is intended to make the
+transition less painful.  Sendmail does require certain base-level
+standards on target mailers such as the basic semantics of certain
+headers and the surface syntax of messages.  New mailers can be added
+trivially; for example, a Purduenet channel was brought up in twenty
+minutes.