I'd re-read the RFC. "Unknown" is always an error state.
"None" means the domain has no SPF record.
"Neutral" means the SPF record didn't evaluate to a "Pass" or a "Fail".
Oops - my fault. So I guess this reduces the discussion to, whether the SPF
spec should indicate how to handle the error or not.
I'm saying that the RFC says that an "Unknown" should be *treated* the same
as a "None" or "Neutral".
And, that all three should be filtered/rejected the same way.
Which is where we disagree - I would like to be in control of this for my
domain, having
more choices than agreeing with you.
I do understand that you think differently about this topic, but I don't see
how it can
bother anybody that other people would like it different? Is there any reason
to enforce
one opinion on all people? I definitely don't see any technical reason for it.
This is because during testing (and before widespread adoption), things are
bound to be misconfigured
...which is why I want a better error handling than what we have now. My
background is not only
M.Sc. in telecommunications, but also in programming, and I think that the
current specs for error
handling don't reflect what SPF is all about: That each domain has different
policies about how
e-mails from it should be treated.
After adoption, all three should be filtered/rejected
(along with "Fail" and "Error", although "Error" SHOULD transiently reject).
This is basically what you want, right?
No.
You want "Unknown"s to cause rejections, right? Well, then re-read the RFC!
That is what is going to happen after widespread adoption.
I don't expect that the world moves in the same pace, and there will definitely
be groups that have full adoption of SPF, and groups that don't use SPF at all,
at the same time. One mailserver has to be able to handle e-mails from both
groups.
Maybe the world looks differently in 10-20 years, but why not make it as good
as possible until then?
Lars.