On Thu, Feb 03, 2000 at 04:42:45PM -0500, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner (spc_at_armigeron.com) wrote:
> It was thus said that the Great Rich Lafferty once stated:
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 03, 2000 at 06:00:33PM +0000, Hans Franke (Hans.Franke_at_mch20.sbs.de) wrote:
> > >
> > > Last but not least, it's the RFC 822 way - and standards are the
> > > only real chance to go along.
> >
> > I'm not sure what you mean, here. RFC 822 specifies that the Reply-To:
> > is to be set by the originator, but the rest of your post seems to
> > suggest that majordomo should change it. Could you clarify?
>
> Just in case you missed it last time (from RFC-822, available via
> ftp://nis.nsf.net/documents/rfc/rfc0822.txt , page 22):
>
> 4.4.3. REPLY-TO / RESENT-REPLY-TO
>
> This field provides a general mechanism for indicating any
> mailbox(es) to which responses are to be sent. Three typical
> uses for this feature can be distinguished. In the first
> case, the author(s) may not have regular machine-based mail-
> boxes and therefore wish(es) to indicate an alternate machine
> address. In the second case, an author may wish additional
> persons to be made aware of, or responsible for, replies. A
> somewhat different use may be of some help to "text message
> teleconferencing" groups equipped with automatic distribution
> services: include the address of that service in the "Reply-
> To" field of all messages submitted to the teleconference;
> then participants can "reply" to conference submissions to
> guarantee the correct distribution of any submission of their
> own.
>
> That last sentance allows majordomo to ``munge'' the Reply-To: field. If
> you want, I can even send you the RFC in question.
You left out the context of that passage, which describes how the
*originator* can use the Reply-To header. Majordomo is not the
originator of messages sent to the list, it's the sender. RFC 822 also
specifies
Note: The "Reply-To" field is added by the originator and
serves to direct replies, whereas the "Return-Path"
field is used to identify a path back to the origina-
tor.
Although I'm starting to wonder if this isn't symptomatic of a
majordomo bug, or at least a design flaw. It would make sense to me to
configure Majordomo such that the Reply-To points to the list *unless*
the originator added its own Reply-To, in which case it would leave
that there. That way, you'd have discussion on the list except when
the original poster intended otherwise, which strikes me as something
that the original poster might very well want. This would satisfy the
objection of lost information (which strikes me as the only thing that isn't
a question of preference or user-agent configuration -- when majordomo
strips a reply-to, it's *gone*) and the objection of encouraging
public discussion (in that unless otherwise specified by the originator,
the reply is directed to the list).
I don't believe that this is possible with current majordomo, but I'm
really not sure *why*. Does anyone know? If not, I think I might
throw together a patch for this. (Would we want it? If nothing else
I'll use it locally..)
While trying to figure out why, I came across the following in the
majordomo FAQ which might be worth considering:
The most important reason why Reply-To: to the list is bad is that it
can cause mail loops if any of the members of your list are running
fairly-common but broken software which doesn't know what an envelope
address is. (Many Microsoft products, as well as many other PC-based
non-SMTP/Internet mail systems which work through an SMTP gateway.)
I don't have any of those systems to find out what they're talking
about, though. Or are they just referring to autoresponders?
-Rich
--
------------------------------ Rich Lafferty ---------------------------
Sysadmin/Programmer, Instructional and Information Technology Services
Concordia University, Montreal, QC (514) 848-7625
------------------------- rich_at_alcor.concordia.ca ----------------------
Received on Thu Feb 03 2000 - 16:07:37 GMT