Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!ginosko!uunet!intercon!amanda@intercon.com From: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: New Host-Requirement RFCs Message-ID: <1514@intercon.com> Date: 29 Oct 89 00:58:59 GMT References: <1989Oct27.212939.11277@agate.berkeley.edu> <89Oct27.235825edt.2687@neat.cs.toronto.edu> Sender: news@intercon.com Reply-To: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation Lines: 32 In article <89Oct27.235825edt.2687@neat.cs.toronto.edu>, rayan@cs.toronto.edu (Rayan Zachariassen) writes: > It isn't > reasonable to demand that every mail system is prim and proper and will > accept DNS names for all hosts it knows about, or translate a DNS name to > whatever magic needed on the remote host based on the hostname (as opposed > to the syntax used to address that host). One has to deal with reality. Alas. Ah. It may not be reasonable to *expect* that they will, currently, but I'd argue that it is quite reasonable to *demand* it. If a host or gateway exchanges mail with the Internet, then it must deal with mail addressing (both incoming and outgoing) like an Internet host (currently, by using DNS with MX records if necessary), else mail will not get through it properly and people will be annoyed. The translation that you refer to is part of what being a mail gateway is all about. If you want to use source routing, that means that you know more about delivering mail than your mail gateway. This shows that your mail gateway is Really And Truly Broken, not that you need to use %s. The more people stop supporting the %-hack, the more broken mail gateways will become their owners problems, and not the rest of the world's. This will be a Good Thing, as far as I am concerned. -- Amanda Walker -- "If your application does not run correctly, do not blame the operating system." -- Geoffrey James, _The_Zen_of_Programming