From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function' Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:38:04 -0400 Message-ID: References: <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> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1310222605 5929 80.91.229.12 (9 Jul 2011 14:43:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2011 14:43:25 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Tim Cross Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jul 09 16:43:21 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 1QfYka-00029r-3g for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:43:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53902 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QfYkY-0002mM-Dh for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:43:18 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:48554) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QfYfZ-0001cg-AF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:38:10 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QfYfX-0004W7-8E for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:38:09 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:35198) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QfYfW-0004Vr-Tx for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:38:07 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QfYfU-0003cR-3Y; Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:38:04 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Tim Cross on Sat, 9 Jul 2011 12:38:54 +1000) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 140.186.70.10 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:141853 Archived-At: Your suggestion of using make install is unlikely to work though. Most emacs users seem to work from pre-built binaries and never run make. We discussed that issue several days ago. While we could then say this is a distro packaging issue, I doubt any distros will implement it due to the complexity involved. Why do you think that the work to be done in a distro would be complex? What I have in mind is a single line, in the script to set up the Emacs package. This would run a script included in Emacs, the same script that `make install' would run. It would be easy for distros to include this one line. Heuristics are sufficient for detecting functioning MTAs, because they don't need to recognize all cases. If they recognize some cases of functioning MTAs, they can DTRT in those cases. In any other cases which they don't recognize, Emacs will fall back on the code that asks the user. Some of the problem cases you mentioned are not our problem. - Misconfigure 'from' address i.e. wrong username or domain. This is surprisingly common. It is not our problem. A user who overrides the From address is making himself responsible for whatever goes wrong. So we don't need to try to cope with any mistakes he might make. Imagine the benefits to many packages if there was a standard mechanism that could be used to determine if the client should use a local MTA or a remote server and in the case of the remote server, provide details, such as server name, port etc. I agree. At the system design level, that is the right solution. sendmail should check this, and if there is no MTA functioning, it should ask the user to configure to use SMTP. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/