Date: 29 Mar 1996 17:43:53 -0000
Message-ID: <19960329174353.28243.qmail@koobera.math.uic.edu>
From: djb@koobera.math.uic.edu (D. J. Bernstein)
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: Headers and agents

> An envelope sender of <> shall not go to the mailing list.

What do you mean by ``the'' mailing list? 

> (Here's where the difference to aliases comes in. <> mail should certainly  
> distributed via aliases [like mailinglist-owner]!)

What if mailinglist-owner is itself a mailing list?

Any frequently updated alias should be turned into a mailing list, so
that errors in the updates can be handled locally. That's the difference
between aliases and mailing lists---what happens when there's a bad
address on the list.

Under Keith's proposal, as soon as someone does this, bounce messages to
that address will be thrown away. Under your proposal, bounce messages
will be diverted somewhere. Either way, bounce messages will be routed
incorrectly. Anyone who uses a mailing list as an envelope sender will
suddenly face a massive, and completely artificial, reliability problem.

---Dan