From: Jim Youll <jim(_at_)media(_dot_)mit(_dot_)edu>
...
Is it really a good idea that all mail products should have to handle
it - and design anti-spam or other things around it?
Might it make more sense from a design standpoint for UUCP endpoints
to be gatewayed through something that talks current protocols on one
side, and UUCP on the other? ...
What happens when delivery fails at either end? What if you send a
message from either the Internet side or the other side, and something
breaks? Would you want your message to just disappear into a black hole
or do you want some error indication? What if the problem is persistent
but intermittent? Would you be happy with a mail system where some
of your messages disappear with traces?
Any error indication in such a case must traverse the entire path.
It must happen long after any of the the original SMTP or UUCP
transactions. That's a description of a bounce.
UUCP is not significant, except that it provides clear and easily
understandable test cases for ill considered notions such as deprecating
STMP bounces. For example, in this case, you could think of the
connection between the external and internal STMP servers of many
corporations as using UUCP and not be far wrong. Whether internal
and external corporate SMTP servers or MX secondaries and primaries
are connected by UUCP or SMTP, the effects in this context are the same.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg