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On 2023-06-23 at 12:46:58 UTC-0400 (Fri, 23 Jun 2023 09:46:58 -0700)
Luke via mailop <lukemarti...@gmail.com>
is rumored to have said:
That's right, Bill. It's so simple. All the ESPs and MTAs out there
have
tools built in to create and customize response handling rules for
absolutely no reason.
In 30 years of administering mail systems, including a wide variety of
MTAs and a couple of MLMs, I've never found it useful to significantly
modify the basic error codes or qualitatively vary reactions to them.
Not sure how I'd even do that in Postfix, I'm pretty sure it would
require hacking the code in ways that it is not designed for. Yes, it's
easy to just never retry any 4xx, no, you can't adjust reaction to a 4xx
code based on the text part or retry after a 5xx.
We actually just do it for fun. We know that every
single 4xx should be retried and every single 5xx should not be
retried.
But we thought it would be neat to have a table with hundreds of
custom
rules just to make it sound more complicated than it is.
Sounds wild, but people do crazy stuff based on unsupportable hunches
unencumbered by real data, particularly when it involves the mixing of
computer and human behaviors. It would hardly be novel for an ESP to
engage in self-deception about what they need to be the essentially
arcane and complex lore of how to send bulk email.
I've seen a few robust attempts to comprehensively violate the rules on
not interpreting the text part of SMTP replies which, under careful
analysis, were on-balance net negatives. The very meager discernible
benefits could never justify the concrete cost of building and
maintaining a system of dozens or hundreds of custom rules. Maybe you do
it differently or better, but I'm a skeptic.
So, you're right, it's just because we are big and we don't think the
rules
apply to us. Super productive take you have there.
If I ever thought that I was being 'productive' for Twilio I would bill
for it.
I can tell you've really
given this some thought.
More than you can imagine...
Nothing in the past 25 years has persuaded me that the "ESP" industry is
anything but parasitic and harmful, as it is built on fundamental
falsehoods. Your sneering is neither original, surprising, nor
persuasive. It is clear that you believe you are exempt from the basic
rules of SMTP interoperability and I've seen that before, often. My
assertion of *why* you believe that is of course just a guess, but in my
experience it has always boiled down to scale and a refusal to accept
some fundamental truths of email. If you have evidence that it is
actually worthwhile for you, you could just say that. My experience
includes evidence that it is not. Maybe that has changed in 2023, but I
doubt it.
--
Bill Cole
b...@scconsult.com or billc...@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire
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