Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function'

[Richard Stallman]

    Perhaps we can make progress if you permit me to ask you a question.
    What's wrong with a two-protocol system?

I don't know whether something is wrong with that, because the
question is not entirely clear.

I have nothing against making Emacs able to use multiple
protocols for sending mail.  Having those capabilities
can't hurt anyone.  The question is how Emacs decides which
method to use.

I want to avoid asking users to configure SMTP on systems where
sendmail works.  Some of them won't know that sendmail works, or what
sendmail is, they just send mail and it works.  If Emacs tells them,
"Please configure SMTP to send mail," they won't know this is not
really necessary.  They may waste a lot of time looking for a way to
do that.  If Emacs asks them whether configuring SMTP is necessary,
they won't know the answer.

      I don't have time for
    general discussion of failure modes of the mail protocol, with a view
    to repairing sendmail.  It's too difficult.[1]

You don't have to discuss it, but that doesn't convince me that
making sendmail reliably fail when the MTA is not really set up
is too difficult.

Also, your footnote [1] suggests we are not talking about the same
question.  What I have in mind does not match what you say there.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
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