Hi Hector, On 18 Jun 2007 at 21:22, Hector Santos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> The only problem is that, as Tony and myself eventually showed by > actually checking a selected group of open source software, there is > enough legacy software out there that don't follow or follow the parsing of > responds code in different ways. > > In other words, SMTP COMPATIBILITY WAS THE MAIN ISSUE, thus it wasn't This is essentially what I've been looking for. Thanks! If we aren't sure we'll even get reasonably consistent parsing behaviour, then we might as well forget it. I'm all for pleading conformance, which is all very well providing that no- one objects when the big boys force everyone else to adopt their broken, pseudo-equivalent ideas of the same standard as the standard, both in working implementations and, later, in written standards published on behalf of the IETF. They will, though, because interoperability is key (read: because they can't really do a great deal about it, even en-mass, without thoroughly discrediting themselves as being broken and unusable and unfair etc. in the process to all those people who have no knowledge of the significance of real standards, why they're there, and all that and by people who can put out enough spin to make it happen). That's just business as usual. :-( Here's another one: would I be in the wrong if I didn't allow for a space between ":" and "<" in MAIL and RCPT commands? That one is the law, too. It, too, isn't seen in anything decent, only in ratware ... and popular email programs. Even Microsoft's own SMTP service now doesn't do it. And then there are the mobile devices which forget the angle brackets ... and yet we accept and put up with this. If I do write my MTA with the assumption that everyone will keep to these little pieces of the standard, I'll probably get lynched for not observing what happens in the real world without any kind of reflection on why the standards aren't describing what happens in it. I do agree that it will happen, sooner or later, that we'll end up formalising "Please hold the line" and I suspect we'll probably also gradually encourage clients to follow it for some reason, no matter how unthinkable it would have been a few years ago. SPF is an example of this; people with big spam problems will be willing to punish those who don't get on their bandwaggon, even if that's not in the spirit of email exchange and interoperability. Both would presumably help against returned-mail-DoSs, among other things. Cheers, Sabahattin -- Sabahattin Gucukoglu <mail<at>sabahattin<dash>gucukoglu<dot>com> Address harvesters, snag this: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +44 20 88008915 Mobile: +44 7986 053399
