Xref: utzoo comp.mail.sendmail:94 comp.dcom.lans:1840
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!gatech!rayssd!gmp
From: gmp@rayssd.ray.com (Gregory M. Paris)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail,comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: sendmail, the resolver and /etc/hosts
Summary: Who's problem is old software?
Keywords: IRRELEVANT
Message-ID: <3937@rayssd.ray.com>
Date: 22 Sep 88 00:22:25 GMT
References: <713@ncar.ucar.edu> <1469@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu>  <1473@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu> <285@hal.UUCP> <729@ncar.ucar.edu>
Sender: gmp@rayssd.ray.com (Gregory M. Paris @ Raytheon Company, Portsmouth RI)
Reply-To: gmp@rayssd.RAY.COM (Gregory M. Paris)
Organization: Raytheon Submarine Sandwich Division
Lines: 36

In article <729@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes:
> based on the mail I've gotten. My users want mail to work. They don't
> want to hear a lot of excuses about how it's the other site's fault.
...
> We all know they've had plenty of time to convert. But my users don't
> *care* about that; they really don't! And besides, if they don't have
...
> My bosses want to send there. Therefore, I have to support it. That's it.
> Period. What those other sites *should* be doing is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT
> to the reality I (and apparently some others too) am faced with.

Not to mimimize Greg's problem, and I do sympathize with him, but I don't
agree totally with his argument.

I suffer, or more precisely this domain suffers, from what might be described
as the reverse problem of the one Greg's having.  Users at sites that are
still using the host file constantly tell people here that they can't mail to
them because we're not in the host table.  (As if it was some failure on our
part, no less.)  I get little pleasure out of telling employees of this
company that it's not our (my) fault, but the fault of old software on the
other end.  Why is it that they don't seem to believe me?  Why is it that they
look at me blankly when I mention nameservers and MX records?  Why is it that
the people at the other site act like they think I'm full of sh*t?

Using Greg's rationale, I'd have to say that it's TOTALLY IRRELEVANT what the
people at the other site should be doing.  I should make it work, dammit!
Easier said than done.  Sometimes the %-sign kludge works, sometimes other
things work, but sometimes nothing works.  I've failed!

Using Greg's rationale does not make me feel very good.

-- 
Greg Paris                    
{decuac,gatech,necntc,sun,uiucdcs,ukma}!rayssd!gmp

                    NO KILL I