On Tue 30 Aug 2016 at 11:18:10 -0500, David Wright wrote: > On Tue 30 Aug 2016 at 09:59:42 (-0400), Henning Follmann wrote: > > > > However, why email is still reliable, because a proper setup provides you > > with a well defined error messages (in case it is not delivered). > > There are occasions when this is several days later, unfortunately. > Some of the retry intervals seem to have been set in the days when > people/institutions dialled up the internet on a daily schedule.
I think you have moved from unreliability (whatever that means) to timeliness of delivery. If you put your mail under the control of a third party you presumably accept their conditions. Anyway, what, without drowning the internet in frequent retries, would be suitable as a sequence of retry intervals? Exim on Debian uses # This single retry rule applies to all domains and all errors. It specifies # retries every 15 minutes for 2 hours, then increasing retry intervals, # starting at 1 hour and increasing each time by a factor of 1.5, up to 16 # hours, then retries every 6 hours until 4 days have passed since the first # failed delivery. > > The fact that a lot of mail ends up in places where they are never looked > > at is a social issue not a technical one. > > The unreliability of email is also overreported by people > whose homework, years earlier, was eaten by their dog. The canine community must feel relief that the canard has been placed elsewhere.
