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From: jc@cdx39.UUCP (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: I hate smail
Message-ID: <539@cdx39.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Jan-87 09:56:21 EST
Article-I.D.: cdx39.539
Posted: Fri Jan  9 09:56:21 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Jan-87 22:42:55 EST
References: <14227@amdcad.UUCP>  <799@maynard.BSW.COM>  <11049@sun.uucp>
Organization: Codex Corp, a division of Motorola; Canton, MA, USA
Lines: 53
Keywords: smail
Summary: Is smail YAFM (Yet Another Funny Mailer)?

>  > > I hate smail.
>  > I've been using smail for two months now and I think it works very well.
>  The problems with smail are caused to the people who DON'T use smail.  

All true, and all somewhat missing the point.  If there were just one
mailer in the universe, and we were all forced to use it, we'd likely 
be better off (unless it came from IBM, in which case only giants could
affort to use it :-).  The problems don't arise from any one mailer
being bad, but rather from a multitude of incompatible mailers.  

What we need is not Yet Another Funny Mailer.  Regardless of how
marvelous one is, it just adds to the confusion.  There's no way
at present to impose a single standard mailer on the world, and
even if there were, it is probably too early; if someone decreed
that we must adopt the new foomail system, we'd be stuck forever 
with the moral equivalent of Fortran.

What is needed is more the sort of thing that sendmail attempted to
do:  find a way to interface to all the existing mailers, in such a 
way that it is (1) reasonably easy to install (not true of sendmail);
(2) reasonably easy to augment with an assortment of user interfaces;
and (3) reasonably easy to invert mail paths automatically.

Whether such is even possible, I don't know (though I'd like to
find a way to work on it).  

>  [Don't take this as a anti-domain argument.  I could yell just as 
> much about direct routing, and one of these days I might.  

It seems to me that both are inherently desirable.  General-purpose
mail messaging can benifit greatly from a domain-based approach.  On
the other hand, if I need to get a megabyte of code from here to our
site in Phoenix, and we have a direct link, I sure don't want some
mailer to decide that, since the modem is busy at the moment, it will
"help" me by mailing it indirectly via moskvax (which, unbeknownst
to me, has email links to both of the sites).  I mean, some of that
code is company confidential, f'Gawd's sake.  The mailer had damn
well better send it along the path I specified.  If it doesn't, I'm
gonna go and shoot it down.

One of the nice things about the good ol' uucp mailer is that I can
give it a totally dumb mail path, and it will do it exactly what I
tell it to do, without trying to outsmart me.  I've grown to really
appreciate that, after having got mail bounced back by "smart" mailers
that find a "better" path that happens not to work for some reason.

Sigh.

-- 
	John M Chambers			Phone: 617/364-2000x7304
Email: ...{adelie,bu-cs,harvax,inmet,mcsbos,mit-eddie,mot[bos]}!cdx39!{jc,news,root,usenet,uucp}
Smail: Codex Corporation; Mailstop C1-30; 20 Cabot Blvd; Mansfield MA 02048-1193
Clever-Saying: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.