On Fri, Jul 14, 2000 at 12:17:20AM +0200, Marius Gedminas ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > I mean -- both Mutt and fetchmail require an MTA[1], but fetchmail uses > SMTP to access it (IIRC to avoid problems with different command line > arguments for different MTAs etc.). [snip] > It's not that I advocate adding SMTP support to Mutt [2], but I just > wonder, why two programs following the same Unix philosophy (do one > thing well) choose so different solutions [3] for so similair tasks -- > handing an email to an MTA. I'm not sure that outbound mail and inbound mail are that similar. Fetchmail uses SMTP delivery to be transparent -- so that as far as the destination system is concerned, the mail arrived fresh from the 'net, without knowing (other than a Received: header) that fetchmail was ever involved at all. In other words, fetchmail delivers over SMTP so that the system can expect mail to come in the way mail usually comes in. Much of the "Why does Fetchmail do this" sort of question can be answered with a read through its design notes, at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail/design-notes.html where esr writes, Why mess with all the complexity of configuring an MDA or setting up lock-and-append on a mailbox when port 25 is guaranteed to be there on any platform with TCP/IP support in the first place? Especially when this means retrieved mail is guaranteed to look like normal sender- initiated SMTP mail, which is really what we want anyway. Mutt does the same thing -- it sends through a command-line invocation of sendmail so that the system can expect mail to go out the way mail usually goes out. Mail looks like normal MUA-generated mail. One important difference between fetchmail and mutt is that fetchmail is an Internet application -- it cannot do anything without being able to connect to the remote mail server over the 'net -- while mutt is a mail program that doesn't assume that. Mutt will happily send mail over UUCP, Bitnet, or even ickier transports, because all it has to do is hand it to the transport agent; if you're writing your mail onto 9-track tape and throwing them into a station wagon, mutt still works the same way as ever. -Rich -- ------------------------------ Rich Lafferty --------------------------- Sysadmin/Programmer, Instructional and Information Technology Services Concordia University, Montreal, QC (514) 848-7625 ------------------------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------
