send email from command line

[Derek Broughton]

Ken McLennan wrote:

> G'day there Derek,
> 
>> No, there shouldn't.  Mail was written by people who believe that mail
>> clients _shouldn't_ speak SMTP, and it _must_ have a sendmail-compatible
>> program to actually deliver the mail

>     I've no idea about the pros & cons of mtas. Is there a thumbnail
> version of the argument somewhere? or can you please explain why someone
> would think SMTP should be avoided?

In a word, "No". :-)  I've hashed this over so many times with so many
people, without getting a response that makes sense to me.  It's just a
Unix meme.  From the point of view of a program like "mailx", outputting a
message via SMTP syntax is no different from outputting it to a file - it's
all just I/O - but all the MTA developers I've ever corresponded with
(quite a few, especially since I hung out on the Exim developers list for a
while) swear that it's insane to have a client program need to know SMTP
syntax.  I don't see where it makes a difference to have to know SMTP or to
have to know _sendmail_ syntax.
-- 
derek