Re: The current status of IETF drafts concerning bare linefeeds

[D. J. Bernstein]

Lindsay Haisley writes:
> My purpose here was to inquire regarding what appears to be a conflict
> between qmail and an emerging standard.

You are misinterpreting 822bis. If someone tries to relay some spam
through your server, and the spam uses obsolete syntax, do you think
that your server is required to accept the message?

The word ``accept'' in 822bis means that parsers won't die. It doesn't
mean that servers are required to permit delivery of a message. Servers
can reject messages for any reason they want.

> RFCs are, after all, the final authority for what is and is not
> appropriate technical behavior on the Internet,

No. RFCs are merely one source of information about the Internet, and
not a particularly accurate source. We implementors decided years ago to
allow non-MIME 8-bit mail, for example, even though the relevant RFCs
specifically require that such mail be rejected.

---Dan