usefor-article-03 February 2000

2.3.  Relation To Mail and MIME

   The primary intent of this standard is to describe the news article
   format.  Insofar as news articles are a subset of the Mail message
   format augmented by some new headers, this standard incorporates many
   (though not all) of the provisions of [MESSFOR], with the aim of
   enabling news articles to pass through mail systems and vice versa,
   provided only that they contain the minimum headers required for the
   mode of transport being used. Unfortunately, the match is not
   perfect, but it is the intention of this standard that gateways
   between Mail and News should be able to operate with the minimum of
   tinkering.
[This standard has been designed to fit on top of the drafts currently
in preparation for Mail [MESSFOR].  It is expected that those drafts
will have progressed to the RFC stage by the time the present standard
in complete, at which time all references to [MESSFOR] in the present
text will be replaced by references to that RFC.]

   Likewise, this standard incorporates many (though not all) of the
   provisions of the MIME standards [RFC 2045] et seq which, though
   designed with Mail in mind, are mostly applicable to News.