On Sat, 27 Aug 2005, Steve Lamb wrote:
> Yes, I get we're talking about mail which hits the
> server and then is, I dunno, REDIRECTED to another address elsewhere. However
> that mail is eventually read by, hmmm, A CLIENT. That means the terminology
> of calling it a forward is misleading. Forwarding doesn't break.
At the risk of getting caught up in this flame war...
As far as I can see, forwarding DOES break. Suppose a server A sends a
message from domain X to a server B, which is not configured to use SPF.
Server B accepts the message, but the user at server B forwards the
message to server C. Server C is into SPF, so it checks to see if server
B is permitted to send messages from domain X; it isn't, so server C
rejects the message. I call this broken.
> Now here's where you need to catch up. Bouncing/redirecting, either at
> the server level (which is what you're talking about and I fully understand in
> spite if your inability to grasp it) or at a client level... and read this
> part carefully Tony as it's the part you are failing to grasp... is an
> antiquated notion that could probably be done away with due to the realities
> of modern clients which are fully capable of pulling from multiple sources
> and... and (here's the amazing part) keeping those sources separate!
I'm afraid you haven't considered the inertia of users and software. Not
everybody uses a "modern client". Not everybody can set up their clients
to do fancy things like pull from multiple sources. Not every source
allows "pulling" (the system on which I do my email does not; I have to
ssh login to it). "Doing away with" anything in the computing world
usually takes a very long time indeed. Backwards compatibility is a
great drag on progress, but we have to honour it.
It is very common in the academic world in which I operate for people to
set up email forwarding; students forward to their hotmail accounts,
staff forward their email when they are visiting somewhere else for a
year or a term, etc. Anything that stops this working is not going to
be adopted in a hurry.
Your "access multiple sources" solution also does not work when somebody
moves employment and the company they are leaving is prepared to forward
their email, but not to allow them to retain a local mailbox. And even
if they do, if you've worked for 10 companies do you want to have to
look at 10 mailboxes everytime you walk into an Internet cafe when you
are travelling?
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
Get the Exim 4 book: http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-book
