> Uh, what? Google follows public mail standards at least as well as their > large competitors like YahAOL and Microsoft. You do not have to like MTA-STS, > but it's an open IETF standard and there's a lot more providers than Google > that use it.
I was not arguing that google is not following mail standards. I _would_ argue thought that there is a discussion that _could_ be had regarding the sensibility of MTA-STS' design including HTTP; And what hits my rua currently mostly looks like google to me; But I am looking forward to reports from MS et al. However, the point I actually did try to make, though, was indeed that mail is increasing in complexity, and 'the big ones' get things in order (well, apart from those mismatching DNS/EHLO setups from MS), while the tail of non-centralized setups does not keep up, ultimately leading to a mono/multipolization and aggregation of the ecosystem, essentially changing it from 'open' to 'something only big companies can take part in'. > Chromium is open source, and there are dozens of browsers built on it. Could > you explain what the problem is? Which, again, is exactly my point. Chromium, by now, drives the majority of browsers, in part because it is open source, and also because it is really good at what it does. Still, I would argue that the majority of contributions to that codebase comes from google employees. Or, to underline who makes product decissions for chromium, from the git log: "Do not revert without consulting [email protected]" Hence, this open source core puts google into a position where they could simply decide the direction into which the web goes. Also, as a disclaimer: The core of this argument is not about whether google (or any other player in a comparable market position for a specific ecosystem; Think of Cisco in the past for networking, MS for OS in the past etc.) _would_ leverage their power to further their own interests, or are generally 'the bad ones'. I _personally_ would argue that utilizing that power to leverage their own interests is a reasonable expectation if they are an economically working actor. Independent of one's own answer to that question, though, the _real_ question is whether it is good for the Internet and society at large if individual actors get into a position where they _could_ leverage their pull on the ecosystem; And, to be fair, google has been using that power for good things as well; See, for example, the phase-out of plain http, which I would attribute--in large parts--to the chrom(e|ium) decissions around handling http. Still, the question remains; What ecosystem do we want a society to run on? With best regards, Tobias -----Original Message----- From: mailop <[email protected]> On Behalf Of John Levine via mailop Sent: Sunday, 17 April 2022 19:42 To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [mailop] [E] $GOOG It appears that Tobias Fiebig via mailop <[email protected]> said: >> If your friends somehow believe that Gmail is the only mail provider in the >> world I suppose I am sorry for them but I don't understand why that is >> anyone else's problem. > >The idea is that you give away something for free, gain significant >market share (=network effect), and then get into a position where you can >first push standards (hello MTA-STS), and later can migrate to a walled >garden, ... Uh, what? Google follows public mail standards at least as well as their large competitors like YahAOL and Microsoft. You do not have to like MTA-STS, but it's an open IETF standard and there's a lot more providers than Google that use it. >We had this with IE back in the day, now essentially with the chromium >engine; Chromium is open source, and there are dozens of browsers built on it. Could you explain what the problem is? R's, John _______________________________________________ mailop mailing list [email protected] https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop _______________________________________________ mailop mailing list [email protected] https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
