On Thursday, February 03, 2011 05:47:44 pm Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
ETRN (RFC1985) FTW.
POP (RFC918), and the current version, POP3 (RFC1081) both predate the ETRN RFC: by 12 and 8 years, respectively. By 1996, POP3 was so thoroughly entrenched that ETRN really didn't have a chance to replace POP3 in normal use; of course, there was the point you mention below, too, that makes it less than useful for most e-mail tasks. The ETRN portion, however, introduces the idea of a distinct server and a distinct client that the server holds state for.
(Of course, the operational problem with ETRN is that it in fact *does* implement "every workstation gets its mail directly through SMTP", when the actual need is "every *mail recipient*".
That has its advantages for certain uses. And its distinct disadvantages, as you correctly note, for most 'normal' uses.