This is an amazing view of a problem which probably represented quite well the view of Internet in the early eighties.
Did you use the Internet in the early eighties? If not, please do not lecture me about what the Internet was like in the early 1980s.
I may assure you however that when the server is run by a big ISP (as is the case here), no user, whatever his determination to use my client, can change their mind.
In that case, the user can cancel his account at that ISP and find an alternative ISP which complies with the standards.
And while I absolutely don't care about that site, I do care about my users which is the word which appears to never appear in your vocabulary at all.
If you really believe that I do not care about my users, maybe you should use other library for your application.
What you advocate is not caring for your users. Caring about your users requires that you care about your users' interests. That, among other things, necessitates following specifications and the current security requirements of those specifications.
The minute that specifications are violated in the name of expediency, the entire user community is hurt.
Security requirements exist for a reason. They often impact expediency. The current tsunami of worms, viruses, and spam came about in large part because of expediency.
The only reason for the USER capability in POP3 CAPA is to provide, by the absence of USER, a means to block compliant POP3 clients from sending a USER command. If you eliminate that block, you make the USER capability meaningless, and undo a substantial amount of work put in by many individuals.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
