Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!eureka!argv From: argv%eureka@Sun.COM (Dan Heller) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: email anarchy (was: sigh (was: Short-circuiting a route)) Message-ID: <115056@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 12 Jul 89 17:46:20 GMT References: <1062@aber-cs.UUCP> <59767@uunet.UU.NET> <3648@ncar.ucar.edu> <3842@phri.UUCP> <330@capmkt.COM> Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Reply-To: argv@sun.com (Dan Heller) Lines: 51 In article <330@capmkt.COM> brent@capmkt.COM (Brent Chapman) writes: > Part of the problem is that, despite the valiant and praise-worthy efforts > of the UUCP Mapping Project, there's still a lot of bullshit, incomplete, > and incorrect information in the maps. Just a quick question... what's the difference between a bullshit entry and an incomplete entry and an incorrect entry? The following paragraph summarizes what's been going on with this religious argument for years. > I don't think that routing is bad; I think that RErouting when the user has > given what he _though_ was a source-route is bad. If I send something to > a!b!c!d!user because I know that site e is going to be down all afternoon > for maintenance, and some so-called "smart" mailer at a reroutes this to > "a!e!d!user" because it "knows" that this is a better route, I'm going to > be _REAL_ pissed off... Fact is, if you see a!b!c!d!user, site "b" has -no idea- that the original sender had in mind -- was it originally sent as user@d.uucp or was it changed by host a? Unless someone comes up with a "law", anarchy will continue. Machines will continue to route, reroute, dump mail, or whatever.. There are good arguments both for and against rerouting mail. *soap box* The "law" in this case, comes in the form of an RFC. So just for the sake of discussion, let's say that the rfc had something in there that said, "If the header Reroute: exists, then the mail is not rerouted if it says 'NO'". If that were specified (and it has been suggested in the past), then everyone would know what to do... Now, I'm not suggesting that -that- be the answer, but I am suggesting that the "lawmakers" should figure out something as a standard so everyone can follow it. Even if it's not optimal, if everyone does the same thing, there will at least be consistency. Everyone hates sendmail (and sendmail.cf's), but everyone still uses it (ok, not everyone). The point is, that's what comes off the shelf, and 900 small companies that start up every year in the valley with their sun's and their uucp connections are not going to know a hell of a lot about what the "right thing to do" is. If the proposal was made for standardizing this stuff, then reputable companies who sell software like this off the shelf will be compelled to adhere to these standards. Or at least attempt to. dan ----- My postings reflect my opinion only -- not the opinion of any company.