🚀 go-pugleaf

(Eliot Lear's reply was apparently posted only to comp.mail.sendmail,
should you wish to look it up.)

Excerpts from netnews.comp.mail.sendmail: 8-Mar-91 Re: Use of Errors-To:
(LONG.. Eliot@turbo.bio.net (1620)
> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:

> >After a few years playing with it, I have decided that where wideband
> >public mailing lists are concerned, reliable distribution takes
> >precedence over the sanctity of headers.

> After a few years of dealing with this issue, and after having chase
> down a number of embarrassing messages before they were widely
> distributed, I've come to the opposite conclusion.  Indeed I would
> argue that this is a failing of the Internet mail system, that it has
> not made clear the distinction between wide replies and replies to
> senders.


I have to agree with Eliot Lear's conclusion and RFC 1123 (that mail
redistributors shouldn't muck with message headers).  I do want to point
out that the mail systems (mail user agents) I've developed and used
since 1979 don't have the problem of unclear distinctions between ``wide
replies'' and ``replies to senders.''  For that matter, user agents
older than that (HERMES) never had such problems either.  Castigating
all of ``the Internet mail system'' because of some deficient, albeit
popular, user agents seems extreme.  The distinctions seem clear to me.

I think I've had this discussion with Tom Neff already.  Sigh.

		Craig