On Sun, 29 Nov 2009, Rick wrote:
That the initial ready response should be empty is a little more discreetly
implied:
"When the initial-response argument is used with such a mechanism, the
*initial empty challenge* is not sent to the client and the server[...] as if
it were sent in response to the *empty challenge.*"
The statement above says absolutely nothing about what happens when the
initial-response argument is not used. It explicitly only applies to when
the argument is used.
Examples also show this:
C: AUTH PLAIN
S: 334
C: AHdlbGRvbgB3M2xkMG4=
The example only shows that it is possible to have an empty argument. It
does not state that the argument must not be used.
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And in RFC4954:
"In SMTP, a server challenge that contains no data is defined as a 334 reply
with no text part.
That doesn't say anything about a 334 reply which does have a text part.
