At 10:26 06/27/96 EDT, Nathan Brindle scribed:
>On Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:20:07 -0400 you said:
>>                                      Tough call- does the company bend to
>>the will of the (usually a minority) workers, or does LSOFT adjust to suit
>>its customers (listowners and members)?
>
>You have the question wrong.  It should be "does L-Soft willfully violate
>Internet standards for mail just to please sites that run non-compliant
>mail software, or do sites that run non-compliant mail software either
>a) buy compliant mail software, or b) complain to the non-complying mail
>software vendor loudly enough that the vendor redesigns the product to
>come into compliance".
>
 
Technically, I agree with you 100%. cc:Mail is THE reason that I went to an
ISP and got my own account. WWW is nice; newsgroups are nice; Eudora (and
even Pine!) are what are worth my $30 every month.
Unfortunately, this world is run by money and computer-illiterate suits who
don't understand internet mail standards, the difference between SENDER: and
FROM: lines, or why they should make a difference. As a result, one may
never convince them why they should spend tens of thousands of dollars
dumping what is to them a perfectly functional mail package that has worked
(in their eyes) for years.
My point is that there are two areas that the listowner/member can attack:
LSOFT and management. I suspect most people are attacking both, and if LSOFT
can comply without too much hassle, then perhaps they should assist their
customers...
 
 
>Begin(flame)
>
>Personally I'm sick and tired of sites that send back totally unhelpful
>and uninformative messages to the effect of "The mail couldn't be delivered
>but we're not going to tell you who caused the error" and other idiotic
>hacks.  If a company goes to the trouble to provide Internet access to
>its employees, it should go the next step and provide its employees with
>reasonable mail software that complies with recognized standards (RFC821
>and RFC822 come to mind).  I'm mindful of a certain major Internet service
>provider who often bounces mail back with "ambiguous address" errors.
>The provider is serious, but his mail software is seriously hosed if
>it can't even figure out who the mail is for.
>
>End(flame)
>
 
I think the best way to make this happen is to start filtering noncompliant
domains. Unsubscribe subscribers with a boilerplate "Your site does not
comply with ..., I will be unable to support your subscription until it is
compliant"
When (hopefully) the postmaster inquires what's going on, spell it out in
polite, informative, easy-to-understand terminology. Maybe if we work
together on this, and domains find their users locked out of every LISTSERV
list, they'll start doing their part.
 
>#include <std-disclaimer.h>
>
>Nathan
>
 
Philo
 
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