Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
To: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Reply-To: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Subject: Reply-To again ...
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 13:37:07 +1000
Message-Id: <10757.808630627@munnari.OZ.AU>
From: Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au>

Sorry everyone, I didn't really intend to stir up such a debate.

I think I agree with almost everything Keith Moore has said
on this issue (and Eric Allman, though there's been less of
that), perhaps with the exception of the comments on what
mailing lists should do, or not do, with Reply-To: headers,
upon which I have no strong views (it all depends on how the
mailing list sees its role in the message distribution, there
is no one true answer).

Apart from that I think I see some confusion, perhaps caused
by people imagining every possible message context, and use
of Reply-To:, From:, etc, and then imagining them all combined
into a single message (a program sends mail at the instruction
of the secretary of someone, to several individuals, as well as
a mailing list that ...)

In every realistic case I have examined, the correct settings
of From: and Reply-To: can be used to achieve almost any
desired behaviour, from the sender's point of view.   The
recipient of course can choose to send the reply anywhere
desired - including, of course, to addresses not mentioned in
any headers anywhere.

Ideally, as much as it is possible to constrain this, the
recipient's mailer should have at least two functions, "reply"
which should send to the addresses in, and only in, the Reply-To:
header, if there is one, or to some set of addresses from the
From: To: and Cc: headers if not (ideally the user can configure
the elements of that set that are to be used by default).  The
second function, Jacob's "reply-personal" should send to the
From: address, always the From: address (or addresses), and
never anywhere else.   A useful third command is
"reply-everywhere" which (ignores configuration and) constructs
the reply addresses from every address in the headers, on the
basis that its easier for the user to delete the addresses he
doesn't want to send to from that set, than to add new ones.
This would include Reply-To:, From:, To:, and Cc: (but still
probably not Sender, though I could be convinced otherwise on
that) with duplicates supressed of course.

kre