Re: [Exim] Forgive my ignorance ...

On 2002-03-27 at 22:22 +0100, Tony Earnshaw wrote:
> I also experience, that Phil Pennock's crappy mmdf 7-bit mmdf server is

It's not mine. It's my employers'. I rarely touch it.

> anihilating all mail from normal 8-bit mail servers on the Internet,

Please be careful when you make sweeping generalisations like that. My
employers are not litigious, but libellous claims of "annihilating"
email are false.

Our mail systems are standards compliant, in not being 8-bit clean.
Being 8-bit clean is desirable, but not necessary. They process email
perfectly well. We'd just like them to be better featured.

> Jim Seagrave, God rest his soul,

He ain't dead (yet).

> 5M Norwegians, 7M Swedes, 5M Danes, 88M Germans, God knows how many
> French and Belgian Walloons, Spaniards, Portugese, Icelanders etc.
> can't send me normal mail through Phil Pennock's crappy mmdf 7-bit
> server, so that I can read it properly.

What is your problem? Why are you unable to accept the fact that
sometimes you don't know enough about a topic? You clearly haven't
bothered to go read the MIME RFCs, you clearly haven't made a serious
attempt to understand Content-Transfer-Encoding:. So why do you persist
in making an argument with no factual basis?

> So, what harm does an underscore do?

The Internet is more than just a collection of machines running Unix
variants, Windows or MacOS. Believing that standards and restrictions
are put in place for the hell of it, is perhaps inadvisable.

Arguing that _your_ systems handle underscores, other Unix and Windows
systems do, therefore every system should is disgustingly parochial.
Some of us run mail-systems designed to communicate, in a
standards-conformant way, with as many other mail-systems as possible.
We achieve this by working to the standards; RFCs 2821 & 2822 are the
result of many years work, based upon practical experience and feedback
from many talented and competent people; go read RFC 2822 section 8, the
acknowledgements.

Whilst that's not _proof_, it should perhaps serve as an indication that
you should be careful before you contradict their combined wisdom and
should ensure that you know what you're talking about.



I have replied to the points raised, publically, in the same forum in
which they were raised. If you disagree with the situation or claims,
and can't provide references to back your claims, please don't follow up
on exim-users. It's off-topic. If you wish to claim
right-of-reply-to-reply, it is surely advisable to first bother reading
the relevant standards and making an effort to understand them.
--
Me. Just me. Not speaking for my employer. Despite attempts to make
me synonymous with my employer. The General Manager would be turning in
his grave. If he were dead. Which is isn't. Nor is the NOC Manager.
Implications to the contrary.