Re: Balsa + libESMTP patch

[Brian Stafford <brian stafford uklinux net>]

On Wed,  2 May 17:37 Carlos Morgado wrote:

| > Given that a reliable SMTP client is available for posting mail,
| > why does one need sendmail to do it instead?
| >  
| surely you don't sugest we remove the local mta option from balsa ?

Why not?  Nothing is lost.

| it's the other way around. it allows you to have 1 configuration
| for all muas you use. some people do use more than 1 mua. 

All the MUAs connect to the same MTA (or MSA in RFC 2476's language),
don't they?

| having muas knowing smtp is even debatled from a design stand point
| and can only be defended for convinience, not correcteness.

I disagree.  By your argument the MUA should not know how to do
POP or IMAP either.  Internet applications are connected by the
protocols, not the traditional way of doing things in Unix.

| > | as for flexibility, can you do per domain routing for instance ? 
| > 
| > No.  And this will never become part of libESMTP.  Its for posting
| > mail remember.  Per domain routing is an MTA function.  Besides,
| > it's a bad idea when the user is stuck behind a firewall which
| blocks
| > port 25 to the outside world.
| > 
| some people need it in weird setups. another example is weird per user
| header rewrites (granted, you can do that on a smtp enabled mua)

Read RFC 2476.  It discusses this very topic.

| understand
| my objections are about an overnight change, and about the options
| balsa
| should
| present to users not about using libesmtp itself.

Right now, its only a patch - the first step towards integrating
libESMTP into Balsa - offered in the hope that people will try it
and offer constructive criticism of the code both regarding my
changes to Balsa and in libESMTP itself.

Regards,
Brian Stafford