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, 03 Jul 2011 08:49:58 -0400 Message-ID: References: <4E079767.30601@harpegolden.net> <87vcvmtc7z.fsf@mid.gehheimdienst.de> <87liwgg3vv.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1309697425 5270 80.91.229.12 (3 Jul 2011 12:50:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2011 12:50:25 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ich@frank-schmitt.net, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jul 03 14:50:20 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 1QdM7w-00008N-9j for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 14:50:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52711 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QdM7v-0001CL-A9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:50:19 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:37546) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QdM7d-0001BD-Tx for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:50:03 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QdM7c-0001bC-PO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:50:01 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:43961) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QdM7c-0001b8-MV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:50:00 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QdM7a-0006Au-TC; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:49:58 -0400 In-reply-to: <87liwgg3vv.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> (stephen@xemacs.org) 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:141490 Archived-At: However, one case described earlier (which is a common case) is that the bounce messages end up in root's mailbox (eg via the postmaster alias). In that case, Emacs won't be able to read the mail. Indeed it won't, but what is the situation where this occurs? What causes it? There are many other reasons why the bounces won't end up where the user *can* find them, even if they (or Emacs) is looking for them. What are some? There is no inherent reason why local mail delivery of bounces should be hard, so I think this indicates a bug or bugs in some software. This unreliability is unavoidable because mail is a store-and-forward channel, lacking a mandatory mechanism for confirmation of receipt by the addressee. Neither the MTA nor the MUA can determine if the mail has failed for quite a while That's true but it is a different question, not germane to this issue. For this purpose, we don't need to tell whether any real message succeeded in reaching its addressees. We only need to tell whether the local MTA has been configured and is meant to be used. There is no fundamental reason why it should be hard to determine that. Here's another approach to determining that: 1. Send mail to a nonexistent local address. 2. See if a bounce message arrives in your local mailbox in a reasonable time. If it doesn't, the MTA is not configured enough to deliver bounces. 3. Send mail to a remote address with a nonexistent host. 4. Look at the bounce message. The kind of error should tell you whether remote mail is configured. However, the clean solution is to establish a conventional way for programs to determine whether a machine has an MTA that should be used. sendmail should fail in a specific recognizable way when there is not one. -- 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/