Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Message-Id: <199509232139.RAA22603@CS.UTK.EDU>
Date:        Sat, 23 Sep 1995 23:25:02 +0200
From: Eric Thomas <ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE>
Subject:     Re: Comments and Resent-* header fields
To: Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au>
cc: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 24 Sep 1995 05:02:54 +1000 from Robert Elz
             <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>

On Sun, 24 Sep 1995 05:02:54 +1000 Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU> said:

Robert,

Your  message is  going absolutely  nowhere. You  are making  assumptions
about how mail  servers and UA work  which may be true in  your case, but
are not  true in  the general  case. Then you  draw your  own conclusions
based on these incorrect assumptions.

>This is actually a pretty boring,  the automaton isn't going to care, in
>your 1a case it simply makes no difference at all,

False. Several automatons, including the  one that probably processes the
largest volume of mail requests in  the Internet, actually care. Hence my
comment, if  you want to make  sure the automaton doesn't  care, the only
way that  is guaranteed to  work is  not to add  the fields in  the first
place. You're free to claim that this particular automaton is broken, but
as I pointed out there is no existing alternative today so it isn't going
to get changed anytime soon.

>That's not quite how I would put it  - if I wanted the recipient to know
>I had resent it, I'd probably use an encapsulating forward. With Resent,
>its more like  I want the recipient  to be able to  discover I forwarded
>it, if they're interested  enough to look - that is,  if they wonder why
>they received  the message, or  something. Otherwise  it is best  if the
>message just looks as if it was sent to them.

You're assuming  the UA won't  show the fields.  Actually, all the  UAs I
have used show  that info. I'm sure  there are also many  UAs that don't,
but it's certainly not as clean-cut as you seem to think.

>But it doesn't. It  shows up as coming from the  original sender, with a
>"redirected by" sticker on it, just  as happens when someone sends paper
>mail to  your front office, and  they decide you're the  right person to
>handle it, and pass it along.

You're assuming this is the case with all but a few UAs. False.

>    ... especially given that I can't  annotate to bring this problem to
>    Joe's attention.
>
>The Resent-* headers are that annotation.

You're assuming all but a few UAs will  be able to show this field to the
user. False.  Any self-respecting (sic) PC  LAN UA will trash  the entire
header and you'll  be left with no annotation whatsoever.  And don't tell
me that it's a gatewaying problem...  RFC822 has a lot more functionality
than most PC  LAN packages, but the  PC LANs are where the  users are. So
the annotation function  that helpdesk people will want  to implement and
recommend is the one that works in all cases, ie in the body.

>    There's the well-known, silent forwarding  where you just change the
>    envelope address.
>
>I don't think  this is well known,  it is certainly not  something I see
>frequently (if ever).

It is called a '.forward' file under unix and seems very popular :-)

  Eric