From: Peter H. Coffin (no email)
Date: Mon Jan 05 2004 - 00:53:15 EST
On Mon, Jan 05, 2004 at 03:36:02PM +1000, Terry Gilsenan wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 04, 2004 at 07:38:11PM -0600, Jay Maynard wrote:
> > > On Sun, Jan 04, 2004 at 07:29:19PM -0600, Peter H. Coffin wrote:
> > > > We've been through this before, Jay. (: A mail server doesn't
> > > > have to live in your den to be yours. And all the ISPs that
> > > > serve your town do provide relay services for their customers,
> > > > and will cheerfully send your mail to Greg for you.
> > >
> > > Please try to be a little consistent, Peter...sending this right
> > > after posting a message extolling the virtues of running your own
> > > MTA is a bit of a mixed message.
> >
> > Of course it was a mixed message. I was specifically explaining
> > that running an MTA is a mixed situation. Receiving email is
> > the important part, the "inalienable part", if there's anything
> > inalienable at all about email. Sending is a different matter
> > entirely.
>
> inalienable????
>
> Wow! am I out of touch or what? When did getting email switch from
> being a privelidge to being a right?
Heh. Well, it's written into the protocol, isn't it? All kinds of MUSTs
and SHALLs for the system that currently has the email, to ensure
delivery, but the receiving system can say "scram! fsck off!" at any
time. Then, if the originally-sending system cared enough to make it
possible to, a bounce message goes back. If it can't, that's far less
important. If sending email was the important part, the sending system
would be required to stay in the connection loop until the mail had been
delivered to the mailbox, so it could receive confirmation that it
happened, and dropping out of that loop would be grounds for any server
along the way to discard the mail. HTTP works like that: drop your
requesting channel, and "so sorry, you get no web page, buddy."
-- "25 grams of wafers and 20 ml of wine undergo transubstantiation and become the flesh and blood of our Lord. How many Joules of heat are released by the transformation?" --Theological Physics exam, 1997
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