On Sat, Apr 24, 2004 at 01:01:24PM -0400, Rob Funk wrote:
And as for whether fetchmail is doing the right thing by using TOP....
well, if the maintainer didn't think so then it wouldn't do it. On the
other hand, quite a few server implementations seem to implement TOP
improperly, apparently with a limited concept of how it will be used.
When fetchmail issues "TOP n 99999999", that's clearly not how TOP was
intended to be used. The only reason for issuing this instead of "RETR n" is
to work around some bug in some (unspecified) POP3 server, probably ancient
and long since retired.
The problem with using TOP in this way, apart from being an abuse of the
protocol, is that it is tickling bugs in real, currently-used POP3 servers.
Therefore, I'd suggest that it be put back to rights. The same with the
sleep(3) after logging in - this is completely futile and just makes
fetchmail an inferior piece of software. Again, one can only assume it was a
workaround for some ancient but unspecified POP3 server.
But if Eric's not around this list any more, and even the 'backup
maintainers' are not prepared to do commits, it seems that Fetchmail is
dead. I wasted a day or so last week chasing bugs and providing clear
patches with detailled descriptions of what they fix, if I have to maintain
my own patch set into the future.
Anyone on this list have any recommended alternatives to fetchmail?
Regards,
Brian.