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Abstract

Sendmail(TM) has been the de facto mail transfer agent implementation since the dawn of the Internet. Today, sendmail development is still driven by a continually changing set of network requirements and user demands. Lately,two new driving forces have also contributed to sendmail development. First, as more open source mail transfer agents, such as Exim and Postfix, become available, a new friendly competition has developed in which the authors of the various MTAs share their ideas via open source and help to advance open standards as opposed to advancing their own particular implementation. Second, a new "hybrid" company, Sendmail, Inc., has been created to offer commercial versions of the open source software while continuing to fuel open source development. This paper will briefly discuss the evolution of sendmail;the influences which drive sendmail development; and how the creation of Sendmail, Inc. has contributed to the open source version. The paper will also describe the new features appearing in the next "functionality release" of open source sendmail.In particular,changes in queueing and new protocol support are discussed. Finally,the authors will speculate on future directions for sendmail.