On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 04:58:31AM -0500, Seth Goodman wrote:
|
| Let me suggest a thought experiment. What if we talked to MS like we were
| really intent on every word they said ... and then ignored every bit of it.
| Nod our heads in agreement and offer compliments for every one of their
| suggestions ... and then go off and do the opposite. Act surprised and
| injured if they accuse us of being uncooperative ... then continue to follow
| your own agenda. If after all that "cooperation", MS still can't satisfy
| the license requirements of the OSS MTA community, we can shake our heads
| and say, "Gee, I can't understand why this didn't work out". We look like
| gentlemen who have gotten the runaround and they look like, well, Microsoft.
| But during all this, we keep our eye directly on the ball, quietly get our
| stuff implemented and deployed while continuing to "cooperate" and stall.
|
I dunno. If we did that, the folks who we were counting on
to implement and get code out into the market might get
distracted by the excitement of fighting with Microsoft
... the particularly paranoid ones might even misinterpret
the "diplomacy" as being in bed, and abandon the project
entirely simply because they don't get your strategy! And
folks who had a particular axe to grind with MS might spend
more time frothing about how they deserve to lose, than
actually working to win.
So if that happened, your plan might not work. Unless, of
course, we could somehow convince people to stop jumping at
shadows and just focus. Getting people to focus takes
leadership; but if the Official Leadership is "compromised"
by your policy of apparent appeasement and further
discredited by the paranoids, then MS wins again. Think
tag-team wresting --- when one guy's down on the mat, his
partner can keep fighting. So we need a co-leader who'll
keep fighting. If someone else could take a turn herding
the cats, whoever the Official Leadership is might be
willing to take one for the team and do the diplomacy as
Seth suggested. But we would have to be very realistic
about how much coding ability this community actually has in
it:
Writing SPF code is fun and important, which is why so much
of it got done so quickly.
Tilting at Microsoft is fun, but not important.
Writing MTA and SRS code is important, but not fun.
In case your strategy doesn't work, Seth, I'll continue to
try to find funding to pay developers to finish the job.
http://www.libsrs2.org/status.html
I'll also plan to keep the ball rolling by talking to ISPs
and to vendors in behind-the-scenes conversations. I know
it's never pleasant to be excluded from those kinds of
conversations, but if we try your appeasement strategy, the
list might get flooded in one of those upheavals which make
it more noisy and more earnest than a spamtrap full of
Nigerian 419s. And if that noise keeps up, I might have to
think about forking the community into the SPF-purists who
don't get your strategy, and the SPF-appeasers who do, and
take it from there. But I'm sure that before that happens,
folks will realize that constantly talking about how they
want to have nothing to do with Microsoft isn't a very good
way to have nothing to do with Microsoft.
As Rand requested, I will add a modifier to v=spf1
indicating "do not interpret in PRA scope" so the purists
can be satisfied.
Whether or not we go with your plan, I don't see the point
of trying to convince Microsoft that they're wrong about
Sender ID. First of all, I'm not sure that they're wrong,
and second, even if you are sure, you might want to heed
Napoleon's advice about interruptions. Third, even if they
are wrong about Sender ID, working with them will have been
gentlemanly, which is always nice, and they'll have helped
us get more SPF records published, which we all agree is a
good thing; and if the problems with the PRA are really that
bad, I'm sure we'll be able to explain to people that SPF
Classic is still useful. And if not to people, then at
least to their MTAs, but that brings us back to the original
point, that we need more code to be written for that to
happen :)
I've tried to make a related point before at
http://archives.listbox.com/spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com/200408/1123.html
See also the last paragraph of
http://archives.listbox.com/spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com/200405/0139.html
So, in conclusion, Seth, I think your strategy won't work,
because the folks on the list probably won't get it, and
they'll get sucked into a feel-good orgy of finger-pointing,
which is ultimately unproductive. It might be better to
just take a stand now and tell Microsoft and the rest of the
evil corporate world to go ahead with their PR campaign
without us. That way, ten years later we can get together
and reminisce about how we could've been a contender, and
grouse about how the right technology never wins. I mean,
that's what, deep down in our hearts, we really want to do,
right?