Re: Last Call: SMTP Service Extension for Content Negotiation to Proposed Standard

[John C Klensin <john+ietf at jck.com>]

--On Tuesday, 02 July, 2002 15:33 -0600 Alexey Melnikov
<mel at MESSAGINGDIRECT.COM> wrote:

> More comments about the document.
> 
> The draft doesn't explain what to do if the same fax messages
> was sent to multiple recipients with different rendering
> capabilities. Should it downgrade for the least capable
> recipient? Or should it use RSET and start multiple mail
> transactions to differently capable recipients? Correct me if
> I am wrong, but it seams that extending VRFY command is more
> appropriate for the purpose than using RCPT.

Hmm.  _That_ is an interesting idea, since we have always
permitted VRFY to do somewhat more poking around in real time
than one might normally expect of RCPT (where "poking around"
efforts more often result in a 250 code and an email rejection
if needed).  While VRFY is, I think, less and less often
supported in a serious way, an SMTP extension that could not be
advertised unless it was supported for this function would get
around that problem.

    john