On Thu, 30 Jun 2005, Brad Knowles wrote:
In practice if your remote users don't use the submit port on your servers it gives rise to all kinds of different issues involving you trying to support the outbound filtering AOL is doing on your customers sending from non AOL domains.
That doesn't change the fact that plenty of MUAs do not properly handle alternative ports.
I've done a look-see around my network and acquaintances a while ago, and among them were quite a few mailers, all of which supported not only alternate ports, but also SMTP AUTH. MSA support is far more available than this classic FUD. If a MUA still doesn't support setting the port to 587 then, at this point, it should be declared broken, to wit:
You can't just set a hard and fast rule (like "let them eat cake"), and automatically expect all MUAs to kow-tow overnight.
It's been nearly six years (RFC2476 was December 1998). Is that long enough for you yet? (Heck, if the change-for-standards-at-a-snail's-pace Pacific Northwestern quasi-monopoly could get off their asses to allow alternate ports, anyone should be able to offer it by now.) -- -- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com> <todd@vierling.name>