Re: bug with the Message-ID ?



Hi Brian,

  well, people may think you're dogmatic, or just read an RFC and started 
programming... I don't. I know, having had to do some mods to an MTA in the 
past, how quirky internat mail can be and how many things must be taken 
into consideration.
However, my ultimate aim in supporting and developing free software is to 
contribute to the great goal of _replacing_ Windows as the most common 
desktop environment.

For that goal to be attainable, Linux software _must_ work in real world 
situations. CIS is one of the worlds biggest providers, not someone you can 
ignore with impunity. As more people start to migrate to Linux, more people 
will run afoul of this problem. But I know the people at CIS, they're _not_ 
about to change anything. So, the choice really boils down to this: permit 
a deviation from the standard, or exclude possibly millions of users. The 
former is a BadThing, but the latter in _unacceptable_, IMHO.

Microsoft, who spends more than out combined life's earnings per year on 
specialists for GUI development doesn't think that configuration options 
that allow communication with systems that ignore standards are so bad, 
they just place a waring sign there or hide them behind "advanced..." or 
"troubleshooting..." buttons.

I strongly recommend against having options that need to be edited manually 
because the typical CIS user is scared of a text editor. So it must be in 
the GUI.

Microsoft hides these things behind pseudo-protocols. So, they have SMTP 
and they have CIS protocols, where CIS is actually SMTP, but without some 
headers. We could use the same trick to insure that this option would only 
be used to connect to CIS because that typical CIS user doesn't know what 
the difference is, and seeing CIS mail as a protocol, will choose it 
because that is what he wants to use.
All others may or may not know what CIS is, but will choose SMTP because 
that's what they want to use.
If the WIndows monopoly is to be broken, we need to think as users would, 
not as programmers do.

Melanie



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