Matthew Brown writes:
> > > 2) Nobody else implements the standard correctly
> >
> > I wouldn't say that.
>
> For nobody, substitute 'almost nobody'. Sendmail, the most popular MTA on
> the Internet, does not implement the standard correctly. Qmail does not.
> Exim does not. I'm sure many others do not.
>
> The difference is that sendmail makes a halfhearted attempt at compliance,
> and qmail doesn't.
Agreed. Now, which one would you rather have?
> > The correct way to handle that is to reject them in the first place.
>
> Are you seriously suggesting that, for the sake of these saintly, antiquated
> 7 bit only mailservers, we should drop people's emails on the floor?
No, and that's the whole point. If you forward it along without encoding
it as quoted-printable, it *WILL* be dropped on the floor.
> Also, let me put it this way: is there any MTA out there that only accepts
> 7bit mail that should not be upgraded for many other reasons?
Yes. aol.com. As long as their 7bit mail relay handles almost a hundred
million messages per day, I think it's pretty safe to say that it does its
job as it should.
It's possible that AOL's mail relays will properly handle transparent 8bit
mail now, I really don't know. But even if they do, if they suddenly decide
that they want to make their relays fully RFC-compliant, they're going to
do it, and they will start dropping your non-compliant mail on the floor,
whether you like it, or not. And there's not a damn thing you will be able
to do about it.
--
Sam
