[Emailcore] Re: [Last-Call] draft-ietf-emailcore-as-28 ietf last call Secdir review

[John Levine <[e-mail]>]

It appears that Martin J. Dürst <[e-mail]> said:
>Hello Rob, others,
>
>On 2026-05-08 06:19, Rob Sayre wrote:
>
>> Because you don't understand that the large ones will want to accept
>> cleartext email while narrower installations will not.
>
>There is an important word missing here: *some* narrower installations 
>will not want to accept clear text. But even with that word added, we 
>don't know how many. If you have any actual data, please provide it.

I have done a lot of surveys of mail systems and I do not ever recall
seeing one that did not accept clear text.  Postfix offers the option
to reject clear text, but it is my strong impression that nobody other
than perhaps a few hobbyists use it.

As I may have said once or twice, if we are serious about interoperation
and the "running code" part of standards, cleartext mail is mandatory.
That's why every mail software package and every real mail system
supports it.*

R's,
John

* - an AI hacked version of Postfix doesn't count