🚀 go-pugleaf

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 <island!argv@sun.com>
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My postings reflect my opinion only -- not the opinion of any company.