Re: [apps-discuss] Mail client configuration via something, maybe WebFinger

"John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> Wed, 10 February 2016 03:00 UTC

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Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 02:59:35 -0000
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From: John Levine <johnl@taugh.com>
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Cc: douglasroyer@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [apps-discuss] Mail client configuration via something, maybe WebFinger
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>Maybe the there are two separate issues.
>
> - How to containerize and standardize passing of configuration information ...

> - How to transport that information across whatever transport is available.

I'm a big fan of not inventing stuff if we don't have to.

First I'd like to understand why mail clients don't implement RFC
6186.  It seems to me that for a whole lot of mail users, it provides
all the configuration info they need.  I realize there are mail
systems where the e-mail address isn't the user ID, and systems where
users in a single domain are assigned to different servers, but there
sure are a lot of systems including the very largest where that's not
a problem.

If the answer is anything other than inertia, that might give us some
guidance as to what a better design would look like.  If, as I
suspect, the answer really is inertia, a new design is unlikely to be
any more successful.

R's,
John