Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function'

[Richard Stallman]

    Emacs forks off the "sendmail" program, which takes the message, and
    feeds it to exim, which says "ok", and then generates a bounce message.

This seems like a definite bug.  Fixing it will take time, but it
should be fixed.

    > Why won't the user see the bounce message?  If the bounce message is
    > delivered locally to the user, why won't Emacs mail readers show it?

    Most people don't get mail delivered to their local machine, so there's
    no reason for them to look for mail locally.

Emacs could look for it.

Sending mail could set up a timer to check in 15 seconds for a bounce
message.  If one arrives, and it indicates that there is no outgoing
mail service, Emacs could set up a buffer for sending that message
again, then invite you to configure smtpmail before resending it.

I think this is a perfect solution, since it will ask the user to
configure smtp only if that is really needed, and it won't bother
people who are happily sending their mail with sendmail.

A second step might be: instead of configuring Emacs to send via smtp,
help the user configure Exim to do it.  That way, scripts that want to
send a message will work too.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
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