Hi Hector,
On 18 Jun 2007 at 21:22, Hector Santos <hsantos(_at_)santronics(_dot_)com> said:
The only problem is that, as Tony and myself eventually showed by
actually checking a selected group of open source software, there is
enough legacy software out there that don't follow or follow the parsing of
responds code in different ways.
In other words, SMTP COMPATIBILITY WAS THE MAIN ISSUE, thus it wasn't
This is essentially what I've been looking for. Thanks! If we aren't
sure we'll even get reasonably consistent parsing behaviour, then we might
as well forget it.
I'm all for pleading conformance, which is all very well providing that no-
one objects when the big boys force everyone else to adopt their broken,
pseudo-equivalent ideas of the same standard as the standard, both in
working implementations and, later, in written standards published on
behalf of the IETF. They will, though, because interoperability is key
(read: because they can't really do a great deal about it, even en-mass,
without thoroughly discrediting themselves as being broken and unusable
and unfair etc. in the process to all those people who have no knowledge
of the significance of real standards, why they're there, and all that and
by people who can put out enough spin to make it happen). That's just
business as usual. :-(
Here's another one: would I be in the wrong if I didn't allow for a space
between ":" and "<" in MAIL and RCPT commands? That one is the law, too.
It, too, isn't seen in anything decent, only in ratware ... and popular
email programs. Even Microsoft's own SMTP service now doesn't do it. And
then there are the mobile devices which forget the angle brackets ... and
yet we accept and put up with this. If I do write my MTA with the
assumption that everyone will keep to these little pieces of the standard,
I'll probably get lynched for not observing what happens in the real world
without any kind of reflection on why the standards aren't describing what
happens in it.
I do agree that it will happen, sooner or later, that we'll end up
formalising "Please hold the line" and I suspect we'll probably also
gradually encourage clients to follow it for some reason, no matter how
unthinkable it would have been a few years ago. SPF is an example of
this; people with big spam problems will be willing to punish those who
don't get on their bandwaggon, even if that's not in the spirit of email
exchange and interoperability. Both would presumably help against
returned-mail-DoSs, among other things.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
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