----- Original Message -----
From: "wayne" <wayne(_at_)schlitt(_dot_)net>
To: <spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com>
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 8:34 PM
Subject: Re: [spf-discuss] Re: Agenda item: SenderID Position Statement
In
<Pine(_dot_)LNX(_dot_)4(_dot_)44(_dot_)0412051036470(_dot_)23330-100000(_at_)sokol(_dot_)elan(_dot_)net>
"william(at)elan.net" <william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net> writes:
On Sun, 5 Dec 2004, wayne wrote:
For the next SPF council meeting, I request that the SPF communities'
position on SenderID be put on the agenda.
One of my candidate pledges said:
I strongly support the "SPF Community Position on SenderID" as
written
on http://www.openspf.org/OpenSPF_community_position_v102.html and
have signed it. Since this document was (obviously) written before
the elections, one of my first tasks would be to bring this to an
official vote.
This pledge has now been signed by over 100 people and more people are
signing it daily. At this time, I intend to vote for adopting this
position as it stands.
I agree. And already larger portion of active members of SPF Community
signed it, so council should just make it official and confirm community
consensus.
My intent on having the council vote on this is to put this issue to
rest. There were/are, however, several candidates who have express
reservations with this and did not sign it. I cross-posted this
agenda request to spf-discuss as a way of saying "Speak now, or
forever hold your peace."
OK - I haven't said much about this statement, and I haven't signed it, and
won't
Reasons -
No matter how bad we might think MS and their ideas might be - that's not
something we should comment on publicly.
I believe we should not talk down *any* attempts to combat spam.
I believe we should *only* talk up SPF.
I believe we should say to the world - "It's nice to see MS working against
spam. We are happy to co-operate with *any* people who are working against
spam."
Full stop - period - end of topic.
Publishing an spf record is a bit like publishing *any* record. Once it's
published and "out there", you can't stop anyone from reading it and
assuming a whole bunch of things which may or may not be correct.
Take the simple case of an MX record, if it's published people say -
"There's a mailserver here" and if it's not, they say " I wonder if there's
a mailserver here?" The two statements are not opposites - the situation is
not black and white, and I believe things will be like this with spf records
too - available for people to use as they see fit.
I was pushing for an optional modifier so that publishers could tell the
world what technologies were able to use their records, but on reflection,
I'm not sure that it's worth the effort of persuading MS to play ball with
that idea. And, besides, I believe we have spent far too much time studying
someone else's product instead of getting on with improving our own.
All this talk of the licence, the patent(s), the technical problems, etc,
etc seems to be based on opinions only. I haven't seen any hard facts of
Sender-ID working in the field and producing statistics we can look at.
OK - so that's because it isn't in the field yet, in which case we simply
say that we'll be interested to see how it gets on.
I am not sure why we are producing a statement of our position on Sender-ID,
other than to satisfy some whim of people in MS. Why Sender-ID? Why not
BATV, SRS, SES, CSV, whatever? Just because it uses spf records is not a
valid reason - spf records are going to be used by all kinds of people for
different reasons, not all of which we are going to like, but we can't do
*anything* to stop it happening, so I suggest we relax and allow everyone
else to get on with their work, while we get on with ours.
We must evangilise the correct use of spf records, but we can not dictate
what others will do when they read them. If someone was to produce a bad
spf milter, no-one would use it, so they would either fix it or go away,
just like any other product.
So - fwiw - my "Position on Sender-ID" is -
Let the world decide - meantime we are working hard to simplify and
strengthen spf and will work with anyone involved in combating spam.
Slainte,
JohnP.
johnp(_at_)idimo(_dot_)com
ICQ 313355492