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Re: Advancing RFC2821 to Draft Standard -- outline of work

2007-01-22 15:27:48
On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:24:27 +0100, Frank Ellermann said:
However there's no way that this rest can be a "draft standard"
without fixing another major problem in RFC 2821, the design
flaw to favour "accept and bounce" instead of "reject".

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Frank here - today's Internet isn't
the Internet of RFC821, and we really *should* take a very close look at
fixing that language even if it *does* mean another iteration at Proposed,
beecause if we don't fix it this time around, we'll be saddled with it
for years - RFC6821 is a long way aray.

Would tagging "accept and bounce" as a SHOULD NOT (with appropriate text
attached) be doable without resetting back to Proposed?  I know "MUST NOT"
would cause such a reset, and even I'm not ready to stick *that* label on
"accept and bounce" - mostly because I've spent too much time working with
large-scale mail systems where the mailbox *was* valid when we sent the
far end the '250 OK', but had been race-conditioned into oblivion by the
time actual final delivery was attempted.

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