Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 11:45:54 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
To: Jim Conklin <conklin@info.cren.net>
Cc: ietf-drums <drums@CS.UTK.EDU>
Subject: Re: "Reply-To"
In-Reply-To: <199508162042.QAA27222@info.cren.net>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950817113657.27446M-100000@ester>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Wed, 16 Aug 1995, Jim Conklin wrote:

>   Please understand that mailing-list managers (as distinguished from list
> expanders) have for years been acting as surrogate senders for message
> originators who send their mail to these lists perfectly happy that the
> mailing-list manager acts as Sender for their message to the list and, as
> Sender, creates a Reply-To header as the participants of the list have
> either agreed to or accepted as appropriate for that list.

>   If you insist on REMOVING that facility because you don't happen to like
> it, you'll be setting up a standard that deliberately ignores the needs and
> practice of a very large group within the electronic community. 

I do not strongly like either of the two main present uses of the
"Reply-To" heading field. What I dislike is that there are two
incompatible uses of this field, and this incompatibility causes
problems.

It is obvious that if there are two incompatible uses of a feature,
then any choice will have to cause problems for some existing systems.
However, keeping the incompatibility may cause even more problems
in the future.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme