Mark [admin(_at_)asarian-host(_dot_)net] wrote:
Julian Mehnle wrote:
The alternative you suggested -- as far as I think I understood it --
is to simply write in the specification: "Rejecting messages as a
reaction to a FAIL result is currently not recommended". And _that_
is simply _not_ a viable option.
I can understand the position of pointing out -- like the people of SA
do for their product, for instance -- that SPF itself does not block
anything (which is true); and, taken to its extreme, perhaps even that
SPF does not recommend action.
I know this is an extreme position, and that is why I have never actively
lobbied for it.
However, since we live in a real world, the implicit recommendation on
FAIL, if SPF is to have any meaning at all, must always be that a REJECT
is warranted. In the same vein that the information in any DNS record
always carries the implicit recommendation of being used accordingly;
anything else is silliness.
Agreed.
A recommendation, explicit or implicit, is no obligation, though. Your
MTA, your rules. But the intent, and so the implicit recommendation, of
FAIL can really only ever mean one thing: REJECT.
Agreed. As I said, I _cannot_ see recommending NOT TO REJECT on FAIL
(which is what Alex suggested).