smail vs. sendmail

[Johan Vromans]

>From article <398 at atcmpe.UUCP>, by gertjan at atcmpe.UUCP (Gertjan Vinkesteyn):
> In this version I am missing support for Cc: fields and Reply-To: and
> In-Reply-To: fields. Especially the absence of a Cc: field scanner can cause
> mail to bounce between major backbones like in the following example:
> 
> 	From: gertjan at atcmpe
> 	Cc: gertjan
> 	To: user at hp4nl
> results in 
> 	From: gertjan at atcmpe
> 	Cc: gertjan at hp4nl.nluug.nl
> 	To: user at hp4nl
> at the target site.

This is not caused by smail2.5, but by the backbone which doesn't
handle cc's properly. Unfortunately, RFC822 does not define what
to do in the above case. The backbone treats an address without
domain as "local" (as all sendmail based MTAs do). Another
opinion - and more logical - is to interpret CC-addresses relative
to the sender of the message. So the mailers can leave this field
alone, and the user agent can handle replys accordingly.

> So if smail3.x should be accepted in netland, let it be a good MTA mailer,
> comparable to sendmail and mmdf. Proper handling of RFC822 is first demand.
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
But not including sendmail bugs and cryptic configuration files.
Smail3.x is plug-compatible with sendmail. And it's worth waiting
for.


-- 
Johan Vromans			 jv at mh.nl via european backbone (mcvax)
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