I have been following the list casually on the archives and decided to join in
order to make this point.
There is still a pretty big difference, at least to the uninitiated, between
what Microsoft is publishing publicly and what the SPF community is saying.
This can only lead to confusion and resistance to adoption.
For instance read:
"Sender ID" (Published: June 23, 2004 | Updated: July 12, 2004)
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/privacy/spam_senderid.mspx
and
"Sender ID - Executive Overview" (Published: July 12, 2004)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/0/4/c0412bf5-86f9-42fa-9f67-59a166c13a77/senderid_exec.pdf
and
"Sender ID - Deployment Overview for E-Mail Senders" (Published: July 12, 2004)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/e/d/9ed3b337-7a53-4fd8-bd3e-6c483a2b669a/senderid_deploy.pdf
and
"Sender ID Draft Specification: MTA Authentication Records in DNS" (Published
June 23, 2004)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/a/2/da2821f5-6acb-4058-8974-5a3c7d187794/senderid.pdf
SPF is not mentioned, even implicitly, in the first three documents, and is
only implicitly (not explicitly) included in the fourth. The documents
specifically direct domain admins to publish "email policy documents" in DNS
TXT records in "_ep." subdomains. The documents only mention the XML version
of Sender ID records. No mention is made of backward compatibility with SPF
and SPF records in DNS TXT records under the regular domain name as a standard
part of the Sender ID specification.
Also, the last time I checked, MS only had the Caller ID version of their
Sender ID records in DNS for MSN and Hotmail. I know that, under the Sender ID
spec, this is perfectly legal, but displays no inclination to support the early
adopters who have gone with SPF, and certainly does not encourage others to
publish SPF or take it seriously.
Somebody needs to hold MS's feet to the fire on this asap. Probably needs to
be the big players like AOL. So long as MS continues to obfuscate the agreed
upon full back compatibility of SPF and Sender ID, the poor slobs in the real
world trying to figure out what to do are going to be in a quandry and SPF will
fail to thrive.
Back to lurking mode.
Mark Holm