资料来源 : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

sendmail
     
         The {BSD} Unix {Message Transfer Agent} supporting
        mail transport via {TCP/IP} using {SMTP}.  Sendmail is
        normally invoked in the {background} via a {Mail User Agent}
        such as the {mail} command.
     
        Sendmail was written by {Eric Allman} at the {University of
        California at Berkeley} during the late 1970s.  He now has his
        own company, {Sendmail Inc.}
     
        Sendmail was one of the first programs to route messages
        between {networks} and today is still the dominant e-mail
        transfer software.  It thrived despite the awkward {ARPAnet}
        transition between {NCP} to TCP protocols in the early 1980s
        and the adoption of the new SMTP Simple Mail Transport
        Protocol, all of which made the business of mail routing a
        complex challenge of backward and forward compatibility for
        several years.  There are now over one million copies of
        Sendmail installed, representing over 75% of all Internet mail
        servers.
     
        Simultaneously with the announcement of the company in
        November 1997, Sendmail 8.9 was launched, featuring new tools
        designed to limit {junk e-mail}.  SendMail 8.9 is still
        distributed as {source code} with the rights to modify and
        distribute.
     
        Latest version: 8.9.1, as of 1998-08-25.
     
        The command
     
        	sendmail -bv ADDRESS
     
        can be used to learn what the local mail system thinks of
        ADDRESS.  You can also talk to the Sendmail {daemon} on a
        remote host FOO with the command
     
        	telnet FOO 25
     
        (1998-08-25)