Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 95 23:58:15 -0500
From: Eric Norman <ejnorman@macc.wisc.edu>
Reply-To: drums%CS.UTK.EDU@CS.UTK.EDU
Message-Id: <9509190458.AA19309@dogie.macc.wisc.edu>
To: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: one use of Resent-*

> If you autoforward your mail on a VMS system running PMDF
> (using "set forward ..." in VMS MAIL), PMDF appears to add
> the following headers:

> Resent-Date: (the date at which the mail was forwarded)
> Resent-From: (the original from address...NOT that of the user
> 	      forwarding the mail)
> Resent-To:   (the address to which the mail is being forwarded)
> Resent-message-id: (a new message id for the forwarded message)

> I'm not interested in whether this is right or wrong; only
> in what the different UA and MTA behaviors are.

One of the main mail MTAs that we use here at Wisconsin is a
version of PMDF that I modified.  It takes the view that addition
of Resent-* headers should only happen when there is *explicit*
action by a human being to forward (i.e. resend) a message to
a different person.  That is, Resent-* headers are intended to
indicate cases like "Oops, Gwendolyn handles this now or she knows
more about this than I do", I'll send this to her.  With this view,
normal replies (you get only one in VMS) go to the original Reply-To:
or From: header, not to any Resent-* header that might have added.
The information in any Resent-* headers is for Gwendolyn's use to
correct addresses that correspondents should be using to communicate
with her.

The only "justification" of this view that I can find in RFC822 is
the fact that the introduction of Resent-* headers (4.2 FORWARDING)
uses the phrase "forwarded by an original recipient who attached";
this means explicit human intervention to me.

(Keith, stop reading; you said you weren't interested).  In light
of the above, I also think that adding Resent-* headers when a
message is automatically forwarded is wrong.  It's unnecessary
clutter that provides no useful information farther on down the line.
I know where my .forward files point and the Received: headers will
verify that the message went through those hosts if I care.

-- Eric Norman