Re: Gnome-Bugs and SMTP

[Mike Touloumtzis <miket bluemug com>]

On Wed, Nov 10, 1999 at 01:45:45PM +0200, Sarel J. Botha wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 09, 1999 at 08:46:00AM -0600, Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> > There are many reasons: but I think the most important is that if you
> > use sendmail, and you are disconnected from the network, the message
> > will still be queued for delivery when the machine connecst to the
> > network.
> > 
> > Also, various sites might have special firewalls and mail hubs for
> > mail delivery, so it is better to go that way.
> 
> I think it should try open a socket directly to mail.gnome.org and if that
> doesn't work, provide the option to use another SMTP server or local
> sendmail.
> 

It is really best to get in the habit of using the system's mailer.
If you start putting SMTP into apps, you run into issues like sites
that blackhole mail from dialup IPs (there is a MAPS dialup IP domain,
which some people use).  People using Exim can easily add headers to
blackholed mail, and filter it into spam boxes.  Whooops... now some of
the mail from your machine gets through, and some bounces.

This is just one example of potential problems.  The MTA implements
the user's preferred mail handling policy.  This policy shouldn't be
circumvented by applications.  People whose ISPs have mailers that don't
support them should just configure Sendmail without a smarthost at the
ISP (and risk dialup IP blackholing), or just take their business to
more Linux-friendly companies.

I recognise that bug reporting is sort of a special case, but I still
think it sets a bad precedent.

miket