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: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:21:05 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1309130503 6792 80.91.229.12 (26 Jun 2011 23:21:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 23:21:43 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eliz@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jun 27 01:21:35 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 1Qaydt-0008T9-01 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:21:29 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34250 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qaydr-0008Jj-VN for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:21:28 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:36035) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QaydY-0008J1-Gk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:21:10 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QaydW-0002dm-QN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:21:08 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:36751) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QaydW-0002de-9a for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:21:06 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QaydV-0006Fm-7w; Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:21:05 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen on Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:08:35 +0200) 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:141025 Archived-At: It's the same situation on Linux, really. Linux has no email facilities -- it is just a kernel. You must mean the GNU/Linux system, which is likely to include Exim as well as GNU Emacs. Would you please call it "GNU/Linux", not "Linux"? See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html for why this makes a difference. If you install Ubuntu on a new machine, it will install exim, but leave exim in local delivery mode only by default. If you then send email from your brand new fresly installed Emacs, it will fail silently. It will call `sendmail-send-it', and exim will take it, and deliver a bounce locally. Which probably won't be seen by the user. Now it's clear you're talking about GNU/Linux, because Ubuntu is a nonfree variant of GNU/Linux. Emacs now has `mail-interactive' default to t. Why does `sendmail' fail silently if it cannot deliver the message? Why doesn't `sendmail-send-it' detect the failure and report it? Why won't the user see the bounce message? If the bounce message is delivered locally to the user, why won't Emacs mail readers show it? Anyway, if things are as you describe, it seems to be asking for trouble. I think this needs to be fixed in `sendmail' -- not in each app that might invole it. For instance, when exim is configured for local delivery only, we should make `sendmail' fail quickly for any address with an @ in it, thus giving Emacs the chance to report the error properly. One thing Emacs could do in response to such an error is offer the user the chance to switch to smtpmail instead. -- 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/