[Monotone-devel] Re: smtp vs. calling sendmail (Re: static stuff)

[graydon hoare]

Peter Simons wrote:

>  > I understand this. I am of the opinion that it's a
>  > mistake for email, but reasonable people may
>  > disagree.
>
> Same here. I can see the benefits of not depending on
> another external tool, but in the case of e-mail, it
> feels a bit extreme.

it was not extreme-ness which moved me to include SMTP: it was ease. I 
already had most of the machinery in the NNTP code (the protocols are 
very similar) so I just tacked SMTP on as a near-free bonus.

and -- digressing -- my personal experience is that most mail systems 
are semi-centralized around smarthosts these days anyways, and most 
client sendmail configs are forward-only, so I didn't see it as that big 
a deal. several MUAs include SMTP now, to cut down on "how do I 
configure sendmail?" support bugs, and it seems to work from a policy 
angle. mail still flows.

in any case, it would not be difficult to provide a hook to let a user 
call the MTA of their choice for posting. it's actually easiest for 
SMTP; the other protocols do a somewhat specialized fetching routine as 
well, which will be more difficult to describe to a hook. SMTP is post-only.

-graydon