[Mimedefang] SMTP Pipelining, and GREYLISTING

[Paul Murphy]

> As for the paragraph you reference, from RFC 2920, I suspect 
> that just as there are mailers that only partially impliment, 
> incorrectly impoliment, or choose to ignore portions of 
> rfc821/2821, I suspect there would be pipeline-capable hosts 
> that only partially impliment, incorrectly impliment, or 
> partially ignore RFC 2920.

One of the great problems in the IT world is that we set standards, then someone
blithely ignores them, then we take action to ensure that those who ignore them
can carry on ignoring them for as long as they like.

So someone has a non-compliant mail system - have they reported it to the
supplier and demanded a fix?  Probably not, because it's easier/quicker to
complain to the few sites which exercise the problem, and leave them to sort it
out.  Does the supplier even know that their software is non-compliant?
Possibly not.  If they do know, do they care?  In many cases, not at all - it
works, and it's not going to add to their profit margin to tweak it to work
properly.

It also doesn't help when so much of the RFC corpus has "should" in many places
where it really ought to have "must", but that's a side issue.

Until the world comes to realise that the only way to ensure standards
compliance is to refuse to bend to suit the non-compliant, we're forced to break
our own systems to cope with the useless few.  What a way to run an industry...

Best Wishes,

Paul.
__________________________________________________
Paul Murphy
Head of Informatics
Ionix Pharmaceuticals Ltd
418 Science Park, Cambridge, CB4 0PA

Tel. 01223 433741
Fax. 01223 433788



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