[JDEV] How to handle multiple clients

[Aron Atkins]

> Ok, so when jabber sends the e-mail the return address is actually to a
> special virtual host and any mail sent to a user on jsmtp.flinstone.com is
> actually send to that user at flinstone.com through jabber transport. That
> makes sense. That could also be a way to create a e-mail to jabber
> gateway, anything sent to user at jsmtp.jabberserver.com is actually sent
> through the jabber transport. Sounds good.

this might sound a bit simplistic, but why not just have a user set-able
field that configures the REPLY-TO field in the mail header?

here's my take on the whole email sending..

 . client sends jabber message to john at doe.org.. the message is
   first sent to whatever machine handles jabber queries (jabber.doe.org).
   if that user is not currently running jabber, a deny reply is sent
   back to the client.

 . at the time of the deny, the jabber client should have the option
   to send the jabber message as an email message. to do that, the
   client should:
    a. write the message to a temporary file
    b. spawn an external mail tool to edit the mail message

this reveals two points:
 1. the server should do nothing but send/receive jabber messages 
    and ack/deny replies.
 2. the client should never be expanded to personally send email.
    it should be configurable to use an external mailer.

if we stick to (2), we can stay away from the mantra, "all programs
will increase in size until they can send email".

in addition, it will make our job simple and concentrated:
 . make jabber an excellent messaging client.

let the mail clients to the mail.

aron
-- 
 aron atkins                                 (atkins@{chrysalis.com,wpi.edu})
 * j a d e d *               <A HREF="http://www.gweep.net/~jaded/">jaded</A>