Sorry for the late reply, Bill. Life. In absence of external governance factors, I can only self-govern. I decided to self-govern toward co-operation rather than confrontation, let's work through the little misunderstandings.
On Thu, 2021-12-30 at 11:29 -0500, Bill Cole via mailop wrote: > On 2021-12-29 at 07:40:01 UTC-0500 (Wed, 29 Dec 2021 07:40:01 -0500) > yuv via mailop <post...@sfina.com> > is rumored to have said: > > > On Tue, 2021-12-28 at 21:59 -0500, John Levine via mailop wrote: > > > It appears that yuv via mailop <post...@sfina.com> said: > > > > The first thing to make internet email viable for the future is > > > > to > > > > establish a defensible perimeter and keep bad actors > > > > out. Easier > > > > said > > > > than done. ... > > > > > > Unfortunately, e-mail walled gardens are a Well Known Bad Idea. > > > > RFCs-based e-mail is a walled garden. > > You may have missed the fact that "walled garden" is actually an > established bit of jargon in an Internet context Forgive me for using established jargon, I will accept the focus on the world that started on 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970 and rephrase my argument in more precise terms than my previous use of terms established by a slightly older Western cult [1]. > So, in short: no, it is not. You are right. It's not walled, it is surrounded by a Ring of Fire. And it is Hell, not a garden. A wall is a barrier. It creates two separate spaces: a protected space on the inside and the remainder outside. Sometimes, the protected space is the desirable space and it is called a garden in opposition to the wilderness outside. Desirability is a matter of opinion and so is the use of the term "garden". You do, elegantly, put up a different kind of walls to protect inside space [2]. RFCs (or the implementations described within, to use your definition of what RFCs are) are a barrier to enter the inside and participate in the system. Unlike your barriers cited above, the barrieres implemented and described in RFCs are unintentional barriers, but the end effect is that the complexity makes the system worse, not better; and spammers benefits more of that complexity than non-spammers. But that is again a matter of opinion: spam is in the eyes of the recipient. Always. > > We lawyers call this the Rule of Law. > > LOL. RFCs are "law." Not in *any* way. RFCs are documentation. Sir Isaac Newton merely documented gravity [3]. > RFCs are not law. Not ever. Can't improve a "Rule of Law" that has > no laws and only pragmatic, heuristic rules in the form of > documentation. With all due respect, "Rule of Law" is actually an established bit of political and philosphical thinking [4]. You are mistaking "Rule of Law" for the collection of statutes imposed on the land by legislators and enforced by the power of government. These are artificial rules. Some rules are natural, some are artificial. Artificial rules can be improved, and RFC (or the underlying, described implementations) are definitely artificial and definitely can be improved. > There is no "rule of law" on the Internet because it is defined, > designed, and developed as a giant pile of autonomous entities who > interact in documented ways developed by experimentation and > collaboration. There is no penalty for not working together, beyond > not working together. There is no penalty for ignoring the law of universal gravitation, beyond... oh, wait a minute, why is it so difficult to move to a different planet, leaving the "90% crap" behind? (you referenced Sturgeon's Law [5]). Sometimes, natural penalties are more powerful than the most powerful penalties that governing entities can mete. Governing entities are subject to the Rule of Law like anyone else. In fact, the Rule of Law applies to any political setting, including loose and experimental collaboration. > Not law, documentation. RFC5321 describes the state of SMTP, as of > 2008, sorta. How it was working best then, to the degree that the > editor and authors could reach consensus. The changes from 2821 to > 5321 are clarifications, consolidations, and updates reflecting the > evolution of implementations of SMTP in the interim. Documentation with consequences = law. To bring it back to Sturgeon's Law: the percentage depends on the choice of denominator. Miopically setting the denominator to all internet emails ignores my reality (and possibly the reality of many users) that if the denominator includes all electronic transmissions, internet email is over-represented in the numerator. The result is the rise of alternative messaging platforms. The displacement of mission-critical inter-entities transmissions to other tools. It takes just a little bit of courage to jump outside the Ring of Fire and move away from email-first to prioritize other forms of electronic communication with less headache. [1] <https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Song%20of%20Solomon%204%3A12> [2] <https://www.mail-archive.com/mailop@mailop.org/msg13479.html>. Respect! I wish all connected devices were designed on the same principle of refusing all connections by default and only allowing relevant connections. Relevant is, again, subjective. What is relevant to me may not be the same as what is relevant to the device manufacturer, especially if their business model is built on monetizing surveillance. I digress. [3] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation> [4] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law> [5] <https://www.mail-archive.com/mailop@mailop.org/msg14820.html> -- Yuval Levy, JD, MBA, CFA Ontario-licensed lawyer _______________________________________________ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
