On Fri, 28 May 2004, Andy Bakun wrote:
One thing I'm trying to come to terms with concerning XML is that XML
will allow greater extensibility than the SPF syntax. Sure, we say we
need extensibility, but you can not extend the v=spf1 at all without
breaking the interpretation of your SPF record and falling back on
UNKNOWN/softfail. Since no new constructs can be added, extensibility
is of little concern.
While I oppose XML because of the patent problem, here is a specific
example of how XML extensibility would be good.
Proposals to extend SPFv1 to handle optional mechanisms and 'include'
or 'redirect' mechanisms which might fail all have one feature in
common: they specify some sort of test or error trapping, and need
to delineate to scope of said test or trap syntactically.
I couldn't locate the example with a quick scan of the archives, but
one idea was something like this:
v=spf1 mx (include:otherdomain.tld|error:(mx:otherdomain.tld ?all)) -all
I can see already I got it wrong, so don't miss the point. The point is that
any such scheme is going to require nesting syntax (supplied by parenthesis
above). And as soon as you require nesting syntax, you might as well
use XML.
--
Stuart D. Gathman <stuart(_at_)bmsi(_dot_)com>
Business Management Systems Inc. Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.