Am 04.01.2013 11:56, schrieb Jim Reid:
On 4 Jan 2013, at 10:12, Michael Blessenohl <blessen...@googlemail.com> wrote:
If there are 'bad ideas' in standards, then why aren't the standards changed?
Because it's hard. And even if improved standards emerge from the IETF - ha! -
there may not be the business or technical incentives to adopt them. Or there's
too much inertia in the installed base to upgrade/migrate. The current state of
IPv6 adoption is perhaps the best illustration of this.
Frankly, your plan to use of the '@' character in the local part of an email
address is crazy. There doesn't appear to be a credible reason for doing or
needing this.
It violates the key principle of the Internet: be conservative in what you send
and liberal about what you receive. Just because the protocol specs permit at
signs in the local part of an email address doesn't mean it's a good idea or
that it should be deployed. [Dots in domain name labels are also legal and an
equally very, very bad idea too.] Perhaps you will see sense when you find your
mail failing in weird ways and your users complain.
Well, it doesn't: all this discussion was about receiving e-mails of
that kind. Not about sending them. Sending them is supported by postfix
by default.
Remember too that it's not just mail server behaviour that will be an issue.
Email addresses with two (or more?) at signs in them will break web forms that
ask for an email address. These addresses will almost certainly break address
book and calendaring applications too. Good luck getting a certificate or PGP
key for one of these funky addresses and making it work reliably. Or getting
one of these addresses added to a mailing list.
I remember that very well. My mailing list software and all web forms
which I maintain handle this kind of addresses correctly. That's the
reason why I wanted postfix to support it in the first place.
So go ahead and knock yourself out with these bizarre email addresses. After
all it's your choice and you'll have to deal with the consequences.
I look forward to never hearing from your mail server.
