Chris Lightfoot wrote: [snip - useless crap] There's also taking an analogy too literally.
Let's move the analogy back to the SMTP domain. An MTA is a computer program that does not have have cognitive abilities that enable it to read error message. It simply sees one of three answers to each command it send in the SMTP transaction. 2XX - Command accepted, continue. Green. 4XX - Temporary failure, try again later. Amber. 5XX - Permanent failure, do not try again. Red. It does the best it can at delivering a message and that is all it can do. If the user who gets the error message back from his MTA that a message he sent is unable to be delivered, then it is up to him to contact the administrator, recipient or some other person, to fix that problem. I recommend a phone call. It is NOT the responsibility of his sending MTA to decipher the message intended for a HUMAN to read and change its behaviour to break the SMTP protocol. Period. I have read this entire conversation and seen that all the examples provided to not justify breaking the SMTP protocol. There is always another way around the issue that doesn't break anything. Incidentally, I am a cyclist. I have learned how to trigger the traffic lights as necessary and in most cases where there is an issue with the lights, I dismount and use the pedestrian crossing. I tend to stick to the cycle paths however, as they are significantly nicer than inhaling vehicle exhaust. As you can see, your counter analogy is also flawed. Whoop-de-do. We are not talking about a human versus a machine here - we are talking about the MTA talking to another MTA. Upon receipt of a permanent error, it is the responsibility of the sending MTA to inform the sender so that the HUMAN can take the appropriate action. A MTA selectively ignoring 5XX errors is a dangerous and broken thing. -- ## List details at http://www.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users ## Exim details at http://www.exim.org/ ## Please use the Wiki with this list - http://www.exim.org/eximwiki/
