On Fri, Jan 04, 2002 at 01:05:07PM -0600, Tony Kueh wrote:

Yes. Lets examine where email and smtp is taking us. Here in NYC when 9/11 hit us, email was how people got in touch with each other. The last earthquake in seattle? Email was the fastest way to get in touch with anyone. In the first world, email is becoming part of the infrastructure that should work.

If some silly idiot is too stupid to fix an application because they don't understand it, the rest of the world shouldn't be expected to break itself for them, especially since people and companies rely on email working.

Let me propose a contrived metaphor. If someone started feeding power back into the grid 1/4 cycle out of phase, would you agree that that power companies should fix their infrastructure to accept any phase, and fequency, AC and DC, or would you suggest that they get an injunction put on such a dangerous individual? Email doesn't have the disasterous consequences that unbalencing the power grid does, but the same basic question is there.

Extending that question to other companies who have to cooperate with others, like one that builds traffic lights, or plumbing, or anything else that becomes infrastructure, who in their right mind would tolerate it? Why should anyone have the luxury of not understanding what they're working with?

Don't get me wrong - its perfectly normal to not understand something because you just don't know, but if someone tells you that you're causing problems and they still don't get it, then they are a hazard because the next thing you know they'll be doing something else foolish. Has anyone else here worked with FirstClass or QuickMail gateways? I don't want to go back to the days where every other day some poor guy would run a $50 gui-based email server written by someone who didn't read relevant RFC.

I'd add: 6. send the sender a message telling them that their mailer is broken, and include link referral to a web page that contains any known fixes.

In spite of my ranting, I think its important that messages get through somehow.