Re: SMTP Use Cases

Hilarie Orman wrote:

> There's a technical reason for questioning whether or not OPES
> is the right thing for SMTP, and I believe Martin once gave me
> a reasonable answer, but I don't think it's ever been elucidated
> on this list.  The question arises from SMTP being inherently
> store-and-forward, as Morin points out.  Thus, one would think
> the the "natural" architecture for handling it would be for the
> OPES processor to simply run SMTP and forward the messages to
> an SMTP server where the "service enhancements" can be applied.
> That SMTP server can then forward the messages onward to the appropriate
> "vanilla" SMTP servers.  So, why is OPES necessary?
> 
> I believe that Martin told me that it would be much easier for
> developers to write OPES rules and modules for SMTP than to
> write them for SMTP directly, and I suppose that makes sense if
> OPES is deployed widely for HTTP and there is a base of developers
> skilled in that environment.  Is that an accurate statement of
> the intent of the OPES/SMTP proponents?  I think it would really
> help if we could agree on an answer to the basic question (above).

Isn't an additional motivation that OPES allows you to forward partial 
application messages, i.e. only the parts needed by the callout server 
have to be forwarded (as opposed to the entire message)?

-Markus