Mail notification in 4.2BSD (comsat)

[net at tub.UUCP]

Just out of curiosity, a question to those in the know of the 4.2BSD
design rationale:

It is unclear to me why the mail notification in BSD-UNIX is carried
out by a separate daemon (comsat(8C)).  The notification might as well
have been done by the final delivery program (e.g. binmail) itself,
which anyway has to carry the knowledge of how to inform comsat(8C).

Thanks.

Oliver Laumann      tub!net      net at db0tui6.BITNET