Author: Eli Sand Date: To: exim-users Subject: Re: [exim] Is it possible to modify my Exim config file so that
singlequote pairs in address headers?
Jethro wrote:
> Sometimes I
> just can't help but tell them the ugly truth: that the expensive email
> product they are using is just plain downright broken, and they should
> return it to the vendor as unfit for purpose :)
I would be more inclined to believe that the problem here is in fact the
senders - I have seen many users who add invalid or improperly formatted
email addresses in to their address lists, and are then baffled when a
bounce comes to them telling them an address is malformed and wasn't
accepted.
I personally dealt with issues such as these by sticking to the standards.
When senders (or even my clients) came to me asking why there was a problem,
I would explain to them that the address was indeed malformed/mistyped and
had to be corrected in order to work. Sticking in an analogy to help them
understand the situation better usually got the point across ("It's like
trying to push open a door that says 'Pull' on it" or whatever you prefer).
If your ultimate goal is to try and fix the major email clients - good luck
with that :) I once encountered a Eudora mail client user with a problem
with Message-ID headers in that it was not properly formatting them with
regards to specifying IPs (it was not encapsulating the IP in []). I
thought I was doing them a favor by pointing the problem out and showing
them the RFCs that were in violation. End result was the VP of Technology
at Qualcomm telling me to "stop quoting RFC's" since they employed the very
people who authored the RFCs I was quoting (ironic that they were violating
the very rules they created - I found it humorous, yet very arrogant). As
you may guess, it got me nowhere, and I have no idea if they ever did fix
that bug (and they were very much indeed in violation of the RFCs they
wrote).
Easier to fix the user than it is the software in cases like this.
