Hadmut Danisch wrote:
Roy Badami wrote:
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Am I overestimating the extent to which MARID records will end up being
written and read by hand by mail admins...?
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By far the most domains (at least in Germany) are domains of
private people or small to medium size companies and organizations which
don't have a clue about DNS details, they are more or less consumers of
ISP services.
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I am writing as one of those "private people or small to medium size
companies".
I was able to digest the SPF spec in a few hours and, with the assistance
of the wizard at pobox.com, write a correct and valid SPFv1 record. I was
able to do this because the syntax is easily readable, compact, and
deterministic. If I had had to learn XML in addition, I think I would
never have signed up for the process.
There is no ISP that could have written my SPF record. I send mail
through different MTAs controlled by different companies depending on if I
am connected from my office computer, my handheld, or via webmail from
somewhere else. I had to start from the SPF record wizard and build my
own record to cover our unique circumstances. I do not believe this will
be rare.
If MARID is going to be successful, then the parts that relate to
individual domains must be simple, compact, and comprehensible. If they
aren't, we little people will not be able to participate. If you have to
put complexity somewhere, put it in the MTAs and possibly behind the
scenes in the DNS servers. Keep the MARID record a simple as possible.
If MARID is going to be successful, it is going to have to have a bounded
scope so that we can understand what is going to happen to us when we
support it (honestly, SPF is pushing the limits in this area). I
wouldn't have published SPF records without a solid understanding of what
I was signing up for.
Whatever you decide on, please do not impose something to complex because
the complexity might be needed in the future. A MARID solution that is
only useable by e-mail/messaging professionals is going to exclude a lot
of domains from participating.
Scott Kitterman