Subject: Mailing Lists and Mail User Agents

From: "jim (j.) cobban" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 10:22:00 -0400

The mail user agent which we use here at BNR/Nortel has some difficulties
with the headers which are sent out by the AIW mailing list exploders.  It
does not have the same problem with messages from IETF mailing list
exploders, so I wanted to start a discussion of whether it is desireable, or
even possible, to make the AIW mailing lists work like the IETF ones.

The relevant portion of the SMTP mail header from a message on an IETF
mailing list looks like this:

Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 12:47:32 -0400 (EDT)
Sender:[email-masked]
From: "actual name" <[email-masked]>

The relevant portion of the SMTP mail header from a message on an AIW mailing
list looks like this:

Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 16:12:53 -0400
Errors-To: [email-masked]
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Originator: [email-masked]
Sender: [email-masked]
From: "actual name" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]

The problem is that at Nortel we have adapted to the introduction of E-mail
on the Internet by putting in a gateway which translates between RFC 822 and
our corporate E-mail system (which is proprietary and based on APPC).  We did
not want to make a lot of changes to the user interface so the gateway
algorithmically maps the multiple options on the messages it receives from
the outside world to the smaller number of options that are available at our
user agent.  In particular if an incoming message contains BOTH a From: and a
Reply-To: line then (since our UA only has a From field) the Reply-To:
overrides the From.  A consequence of this is that whenever I receive E-mail
from the AIW mailing lists, the only way that I can tell who the mail is
actually from is by directly interrogating the SMTP header (which is
delivered to me as an attachment).

I feel that the AIW mail exploders have gone a little bit overboard putting
the name of the mailing list into three different lines of the header.

I would therefore propose that the AIW mail exploders be modified to remove
the Reply-To: line.  I appreciate that this makes it a little more work to
actually send a reply to the whole mailing list, since the user must use the
contents of the Sender: line explicitly, but it would permit me to know who a
particular message is from, and to be able to carry on an off-line
discussion with that person.

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From: "Matusow, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 95 08:25:43 MST

In the mean time I have noted one additional advantage to removing the 
Reply-To: line from the headers.  

As our SMTP gateway was screwed up for a while, my previous reply didn't make 
it out.  So..........

Although I also am going through a SMTP gateway that has certain problems with 
headers that are utilized, as someone that has dealt in detail with this, 
there are good reasons to use the additional headers.  The headers are are 
used are standard and should be dealt with by gateways.  I understand why you 
may not like the usage as it would require modifications to your gateway, we 
are here in the hope that standardized interfaces can be utilized.  If a user 
cannot operate because of a standard offering, should we change the standard 
or should the user correct their error.  Unfortunately (as I am sometimes on 
the receiving end of this), it is NOT the standard that should be fixed.

The Reply-To field is used so that a responder sends to the exploder and not 
the originator of the message.  This its purpose and it meets it.

David Matusow

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From: [email-masked] (Marc Bernstein)
Date: 15 Sep 1995 16:35:27 GMT

I am out of the office and NOT checking messages.  I will return to the office
on September 25.