kdemail.net as sender address

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

Hi!

In addition to @kde.org mailboxes for core developers and KDE e.V.
members, KDE.org offers @kdemail.net-aliases for contributors. This is
quite neat in allowing to keep a stable - and dedicated - contact
address for contributions across KDE. As such it is great for use in
copyright headers and as git commit email.

However, what about discussion related to contributions? I for one
would love to use an @kdemail.net address for KDE-related mails both on
public mailing lists and in private exchange. Admittedly, getting
contacted about a message written months or years in the past is a rare
(but possible) exception, so a stable address may not be super
important in this context. However, it would still offer the comfort of
separating project-related mail from e.g. family or work related mail.
It would also "look nice" in giving KDE contributors an immediately
visible standing when talking to external parties (distributions /
library maintainers / users).

According to a quick survey of my local mail archives, such use of
@kdemail.net seems to have been _somewhat_ common for a while, but seems
to be essentially nonexistent after about 2017. The reason for that, I
*assume* could be that it has become increasingly difficult to use
@kdemail.net as a sender address. Many mail providers will refuse to
even let you send from a different address, and many (receiving) mail
providers will look upon a mail received from a non-SPF-sanctioned
server with suspicion. A quick and ridiculously non-representative test
among three mail providers suggests that only one out of three will
allow me to use thomas.friedrichsmeier at kdemail.net as a sender address
for a test email, and of the two others, one will classify the mail as
SPAM upon receiving it (without giving human readable reasons).

Long story short: How would you (sysadmin, in particular) feel about
the following:
1) Create an SPF-record specifying mail.kde.org as the legitimate
sender of @kdemail.net mails.
2) Allow and encourage contributors to send @kdemail.net-mails via
mail.kde.org. This would still be for sending, only. Incoming mail would
continue to be forwarded to some external mailbox.

--

Disclaimer: As you may have guessed, I'm currently in the process of
replacing my primary mail provider/address, and looking for a decent
long-term solution, personally.

Regards
Thomas
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