From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: chad Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function' Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2011 12:39:33 -0700 Message-ID: References: <4E079767.30601@harpegolden.net> <87vcvmtc7z.fsf@mid.gehheimdienst.de> <87liwgg3vv.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87y60elo83.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <4E131B9C.4020806@swipnet.se> <87liwc1k08.fsf@gmail.com> <34F70A20-5300-4F2C-A271-C928F67F27EF@mit.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1084) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1309982634 1681 80.91.229.12 (6 Jul 2011 20:03:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2011 20:03:54 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Emacs devel To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jul 06 22:03:48 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QeYK3-0004O4-A7 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:03:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:41803 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QeYK2-0003CJ-Be for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:03:46 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:52953) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QeXwh-0004bR-2p for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:39:40 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QeXwf-0001kn-LK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:39:38 -0400 Original-Received: from dmz-mailsec-scanner-8.mit.edu ([18.7.68.37]:56752) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QeXwf-0001kj-DL; Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:39:37 -0400 X-AuditID: 12074425-b7bcaae000000a1b-11-4e14b9d2bbe1 Original-Received: from mailhub-auth-2.mit.edu ( [18.7.62.36]) by dmz-mailsec-scanner-8.mit.edu (Symantec Messaging Gateway) with SMTP id A6.33.02587.2D9B41E4; Wed, 6 Jul 2011 15:38:58 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (OUTGOING-AUTH.MIT.EDU [18.7.22.103]) by mailhub-auth-2.mit.edu (8.13.8/8.9.2) with ESMTP id p66JdaFR009209; Wed, 6 Jul 2011 15:39:36 -0400 Original-Received: from [10.0.1.22] (c-67-183-32-38.hsd1.wa.comcast.net [67.183.32.38]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as yandros@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.13.6/8.12.4) with ESMTP id p66JdXKX024463 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NOT); Wed, 6 Jul 2011 15:39:35 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1084) X-Brightmail-Tracker: H4sIAAAAAAAAA+NgFvrLIsWRmVeSWpSXmKPExsUixG6nontpp4ifQWenqcXjBU9YLaYs2cru wOTRNs0sgDGKyyYlNSezLLVI3y6BK6O1YTFzwWS+irfTt7M3MG7j7mLk5JAQMJFoXfmNHcIW k7hwbz1bFyMXh5DAPkaJ9xuOsUM46xklJixcywjhnGCSWHNyPgtIi7CAlcSdyQvAbF4BQ4ml m9rBRjELaEnc+PeSqYuRg4NNQAZorAZImFPASOLmwj3sIGEWARWJD0/UIapVJda/3QnVKS+x /e0cZoiJVhI7t6xhhli7h13i1ozVjCAJEQF+iYfrfjOCzJEQkJVoWpYxgVFwFpIjZiE5YhaS sQsYmVcxyqbkVunmJmbmFKcm6xYnJ+blpRbpWujlZpbopaaUbmIEh6yL6g7GCYeUDjEKcDAq 8fAadIv4CbEmlhVX5h5ilORgUhLlDdsBFOJLyk+pzEgszogvKs1JLT7EKMHBrCTCe2I7UI43 JbGyKrUoHyYlzcGiJM4b4v3fV0ggPbEkNTs1tSC1CCYrw8GhJMF7A2SoYFFqempFWmZOCUKa iYMTZDgP0HDbnSDDiwsSc4sz0yHypxh1OU6denSYUYglLz8vVUqcVxekSACkKKM0D24OLNW8 YhQHekuYlx2kigeYpuAmvQJawgS0xCpREGRJSSJCSqqBcdK8LMONEVqedVKChpyTn7Tetj3E 9G+ZhaHrz+DS6yEfrQ++2rS3ukRx/5vJx+6YqwZ4SM1Z/CdUe8OfR3Vid9NOv7yzNaiytb89 /7jQc//Tv+/yRFa47TzdalPDr3x4JavQsQ9rZv58WuDy+oD/JQGRet37ac2b/xZ9 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 18.7.68.37 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:141678 Archived-At: On Jul 6, 2011, at 7:33 AM, Richard Stallman wrote: > In the end, Richard has an idea he wants to try, that covers > relatively rare edge cases. > > Multi-user machines that various people log in on are not "edge cases". Maybe. They are certainly vastly more rare than they were when I first met you, ~20 years ago, at LCS. Since then, basically all of the universities, companies, projects, and organizations that I know about have moved such multi-user machines to niche legacy support - dial-up systems and the like. Instead of multiple people sharing a large machine, far more common is to have multiple machines sharing a user: work machine, home machine, laptop, tablet, cell phone - all capable of and regularly used for sending email. In research and corporate environments, individual users running programs on hundreds or thousands of machines is far more common than individual machines running hundreds of users. I wouldn't be surprised if the gnu.org login servers were in the top 100 by usage of such machines in the world. Once you get past the preponderance of more-machines-than-users, and narrow it down to machines where emacs is supported, desired, and installed, you're still going to find that most of them intentionally disable local mail delivery; it provides little service and has a high potential nuisance factor. Most installations both large and small want to channel mail through centralized systems; most of their users want exactly the same thing. In the end, the cases where users log into multi-user machines to run emacs and want to send mail but don't have either a valid user mail configuration or a working system mail configuration are definitely, in my perhaps flawed opinion, `edge cases'. I hope that helps. *Chad