Message-Id: <199803240303.WAA04608@spot.cs.utk.edu>
From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
To: Pete Resnick <presnick@qualcomm.com>
cc: DRUMS WG <drums@cs.utk.edu>, moore@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: Second attempt - A different approach 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 23 Mar 1998 10:38:18 CST."
             <v04010d00b13c3e60bf8a@resnick2.qualcomm.com> 
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Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 22:03:03 -0500
Sender: moore@cs.utk.edu

> Note: During the creation of this standard, there was a great deal of
> discussion on the topic of how the "Reply-To:" field interacts with the
> concept of "sending a reply to everyone". That is to say, many applications
> which implement this standard provide users with a function that generates
> a reply message to everyone who received the message. In a message which
> has no "Reply-To:" field, "everyone" normally consists of all addresses
> listed in the "From:", "To:", and "Cc:" fields. When defining the semantics
> of the "Reply-To:" field, the previous version of this standard said only
> ([STD-11], section 4.4.4):
> 
>             o   If the "Reply-To" field exists, then the reply should
>                 go to the addresses indicated in that field and not to
>                 the address(es) indicated in the "From" field.
> 
>             o   If there is a "From" field, but no "Reply-To" field,
>                 the reply should be sent to the address(es) indicated
>                 in the "From" field.
> 
> Though it is clear from this that application-generated replies ought to go
> to addresses in the "Reply-To:" field instead of going to those in the
> "From:" field, there has always been an ambiguity with regard to "sending
> replies to everyone".

"application-generated" could easily be taken to include robots.  We
don't want to recommend that robots use Reply-To.  (For practical
reasons including loop prevention, they should almost always use
Return-Path.)

Rather than "application-generated" I'd prefer something like
"automatic composition of manually generated replies".  Either that or
add a disclaimer that says that this section doesn't apply to tools
that automatically answer email messages in the absence of a human
user.


otherwise, fine w/ me.

Keith