Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) by CS.UTK.EDU with SMTP (cf v2.9s-UTK) id XAA11427; Sun, 26 Oct 1997 23:12:28 -0500 (EST) Received: by CS.UTK.EDU (bulk_mailer v1.7); Sun, 26 Oct 1997 23:10:49 -0500 Received: by CS.UTK.EDU (cf v2.9s-UTK) id XAA11319; Sun, 26 Oct 1997 23:10:48 -0500 (EST) Received: from snark.thyrsus.com (esr@locke.ccil.org [205.164.136.88]) by CS.UTK.EDU with ESMTP (cf v2.9s-UTK) id XAA11186; Sun, 26 Oct 1997 23:06:56 -0500 (EST) Received: (from esr@localhost) by snark.thyrsus.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA05100; Sun, 26 Oct 1997 20:56:38 -0500 Message-ID: <19971026205638.60660@snark.thyrsus.com> Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 20:56:38 -0500 From: "Eric S. Raymond" To: DRUMS List Subject: Attack of the Giant MUA Practice Summary Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy X-Home-Page: http://www.ccil.org/~esr Info on MailDrop, Mailstrom, Mulberry, and PMDF Mail from Chris Newman Info on Windows Zmail from Ran Atkinson. More on Eudora from Graham Klyne. Corrections to material on BSD mail/mailx based on Robert Elz's research. Added column G. A = Default configuration always overrides From with Reply-To. (That is, without changing a configuration file, Reply-To always replaces From in the reply's recipient list. There is no runtime choice to override this short of manually editing recipient fields in the reply.) B = Default configuration's "group reply" command (whatever assembles From+To+Cc when Reply-To is absent) still uses To or Cc when Reply-To is present. (That is, specifying Reply-To field does not cause To+Cc to be ignored by the command that would otherwise reply to From+To+Cc.) C = Default configuration ignores Reply-To if given a non-default choice at send time. (e.g. an alternate command, a non-default answer to a dialogue question, a non-default button press in an options menu.) D = Reply-To rules can be globally reconfigured by user. (By persistent options in a GUI, or by a configuration files.) E = Has `standard' two-button or two-command UI ("personal" and "group"). Exceptions are explained by a note. F = MUA allows you to edit recipient list? G = MUA allows you to edit outgoing From? Y = yes, . = no, ? = unknown. ?? = contributor not recorded + indicates there is a footnote for this MUA Everything above the line of =s conforms to the strong version of RP#3. Everything above the line of -s conforms to the weak version of RP#3. A B C D E F G ? Reported by: - - - - - - - - ------------------------------------- SunOS mail Y Y . . Y Y Y . Dan Bernstein, Robert Elz Emacs rmail Y Y . . Y Y Y . Eric Raymond elm Y Y . . Y Y . . Eric Raymond Netscape Y Y . . Y Y ? . Jamie Zawinski (the implementor) M$ Exchange Y Y . . Y . ? . Bill McQuillan, Larry Osterman Eudora Y Y . . Y Y Y . Graham Klyne, Pete Resnick Sun MailTool Y Y . . Y ? ? . Jamie Zawinski dtmail Y Y . . Y ? ? + Maurizio Codogno, John Beck Simeon Y Y . . . ? ? + Roger Fajman Mailstrom 2.04 Y Y . . . ? ? + Chris Newman Emacs MH-E Y Y . . Y ? ? + Jamie Zawinski exmh Y Y . . Y ? ? + John Beck, Robert Elz xmh Y Y . . Y ? ? ++ Robert Elz ======================= mh Y Y . Y . ? ? + John Beck, Robert Elz mush Y Y . Y ? ? ? + Bart Schaefer (the implementor) zmail Y Y . Y Y ? ? + Bart Schaefer (the implementor) Emacs VM Y Y . Y Y Y Y + Kyle Jones (the implementor) ZmailPro ? ? ? ? Y ? ? + Ran Atkinson pine . Y Y Y Y Y . + Eric Raymond mutt . Y Y Y . Y Y + Eric Raymond MailDrop 1.2d7 . Y Y . . ? ? + Chris Newman Mulberry 1.3b3 . Y Y . . ? ? + Chris Newman PMDF Mail . Y Y . . . ? + Chris Newman ----------------------- BSDmail . . . . . Y ? + Dan Bernstein, Robert Elz dtmail: This is a Motif-based successor to MailTool, shipped with Solaris 2.6. Simeon: a commercial IMAP4 client for Windows 3.1/95/NT, Mac, and Unix from Esys Corporation. It has one Reply button that prompts for whether you want to reply to all recipients. MH-E/exmh/xmh: all front ends to mh. You could argue that they should get Y in column D because mh allows you to prevent Reply-To overriding From via configuration. However, none of these front ends seems to include that among the options they present the user. xmh: normal reply UI is one-button, using whatever mh reply options the user has configured. mh: has a command-line interface; the reply-personal/reply-all choice is made through command-line options. Emacs VM: you can make VM clobber Reply-To on a per-address basis via regexps. (This feature is described as "an escape chute from mailing lists that add a Reply-To:". :-)) pine: has only one reply command, but offers a group-reply option via a question when the message has multiple recipients. mutt: also has a list-reply command `L' that uses *only* To when the To address has been declared by the user to be a list. BSD mail: Most versions of BSD mail & mailx have an an `r' (reply/respond) that ignores Reply-to, and an 'R' (Reply/Respond) that uses *only* the Reply-To header if it is present; otherwise it sends to From+To+Cc. SunOS mail is an exception. Mailstrom: a shareware IMAP client, has "Reply to Sender", "Reply to All" and "Reply to Recipients." MailDrop: a free Macintosh IMAP client, has one reply button which brings up a dialog to adjust recipients. By default reply goes only to reply to. From may be used instead of reply-to and there is an independent "Include all recipients" checkbox. Mulberry: a commercial IMAP client, brings up a dialog to select recipients. By default it selects reply-to, to and CC addresses, but from is an option. zmail: now officially "Zmail for Unix" (see note 15). SGI Irix's "MediaMail" is zmail under an alias. ZmailPro: officially "ZmailPro for Windows". Not actually related to zmail/mush, it's a PC-native product that was relabeled after NetManage bought zmail. PMDF mail: a MIME aware VMS mail client. An unqualified reply command will just use the reply-to header although there is a qualifier to just use the from header. Reply with the "/all" qualifier will ignore the reply-to header and use from/to/cc but there is a qualifier to use reply-to instead of from. There's also an option to use the Resent headers Historico/taxonomic notes: zmail is the commercial version of mush. If you submitted a report and aren't listed, let me know. Corrections welcome. Can anyone fill in questionmarks or add entries for other MUAs? -- Eric S. Raymond Our society won't be truly free until "None of the Above" is always an option.