On Wed, 2005-01-26 at 20:23 -0500, Jean-Pierre Radley wrote:
> My preference is that mutt should remain the superb MUA that it is, and
> not attempt to also be an MTA at all, at all, at all.
I heard this argument from the time I first started using mutt about six
years ago. Back then I accepted it as good, but since then I've been
coming around to the other point of view.
Mutt is a superb MUA, and one of the reasons I started using it was
because it handled so much so well, especially MIME messages. Back in
'99 there was not a whole lot out there that handled MIME without some
clunky add-on program that never quite played right with the client, but
mutt handled it all, even let you selectively view or forward parts of a
mail message.
Back then, sendmail reigned supreme as the de facto MTA for *NIX, spam
was just canned meat, and no one - least of all ISPs or network
providers - blocked ports. Mutt was primarily a *NIX client (but Cygnus
support was sorta there), it used the system sendmail, the internet
accepted any mail lovingly, and so it all fit well. Life was good.
Things aren't the same anymore. My cable modem provider blocks all port
25 outbound except through their own mail servers, SMTP AUTH is more
common as remote users attempt to send mail through their home servers
while trying to prevent them from being spam relays, and any mail client
with any significant "market share" (for lack of a better term) is able
to do at least basic SMTP, usually SMTP AUTH over SSL/TLS.
I think mutt can include basic SMTP support without crossing the line
into MTA territory. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, and no doubt a
half dozen of you will quote something that defines an MTA as "that
which includes SMTP support", but stay with me here a minute. Mutt is a
mail user client. Users manage their mail with it. That is, they read
mail with it, they sort and delete mail with it, and they also compose
and send mail with it. Right now when a user sends mail, mutt hands the
mail message off to another program to mail it off.
What's more, users, even experienced mail admins, are begging for SMTP
support. Not full queuing and load management and MX record searching
SMTP support. It only needs to do three things:
1. Send to a single mailserver. All messages -> one server.
2. Handle SMTP AUTH & TLS
3. Be as simple to setup as IMAP or POP.
The only action on error, any error, is to drop it a local mbox named
$outbox.
Sure, you can set up sendmail or postfix or any of a dozen other
programs to do that, but if I (as a user) have to set up mutt and a
rather arcane MTA, that's asking a lot for users that just want a robust
mail experience. An experienced mail admin who just wants the dang
messages sent already! will get frustrated when he has a half-setup box
or a box that's not his to admin, that doesn't do SMTP AUTH, he needs to
get some e-mail out soon, there's a *perfectly functional* e-mail server
right there, BUT MUTT WON'T FSCKING TALK TO IT! STUPID DOG!
Grab an existing libsmtp. Don't support the code yourself, anymore than
you support ncurses or gnupg. Don't go crazy on mail handling options
like even the simplest looking up MX records. Make it a compile time
option for the purists. But listen to the people on the list who have
been begging for it and make it possible.
Mutt is a mail client. It's supposed to talk to the mail server.
jf
--
John Franklin <franklin@xxxxxxxxx>
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