Dave Crocker writes:
It isn't an arms race, since the intermediaries want to co-operate with
us, not break our protocols. One would expect that except for incompetence
the problem will get smaller over time.
If they are cooperative, then we do not need to put in features that try to
work around the damage they do to a message.
Standards are long-term mechanisms. If the intermediaries are going to get
better anytime soon, then we do not want to have cruft in the standard that
purports to fix short-term problems.
The entire notion that there ought to be absolutist lines
which ought not be crossed is not helpful for a widely
deployed -- and often abused -- protocol. Our job here
is to weigh the engineering tradeoffs, not producing
ex-cathedra pronouncements on the way the world ought to be.
And characterizing mailing lists as the enemy in an arms
race is even less helpful. We want their good will, not
armed camps. A nice BCP on how one can be a good citizen
in a MASS world would go a long way to bringing list
owners to the table rather than just branding them as
email terrorists.
Mike