Why no reply-to header?

[Scott James Remnant]

On Mon, 2006-09-11 at 14:40 -0700, Micah J. Cowan wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 11, 2006 at 04:39:06PM -0400, Phillip Susi wrote:
> > What on earth is 'reply to list'?  An RFC compliant MUA is supposed to
> > have two options; one that replies only to the sender or the address
> > specified in the Mail-followup-to: header if present, and one that
> > retains the list of Cc'd addresses.
> 
> This is a rather inaccurate statement; "RFC compliant" is pretty strong,
> considering that there /are/ no RFCs that specify a "Mail-Folloup-To"
> header (there _really_ ought to be, though).
> 
> There are also, AFAICT, no RFCs that dictate how an MUA must handle
> replies, only RFCs which attach semantics to mail headers that /suggest/
> (via SHOULD) how an MUA might handle replies.
> 
> Having said that, I nonetheless agree that having the list manager
> program add Mail-Followup-To (and, probably, more standard-compliant
> List-Post) headers is the best way to deal with the issue. Reply-To's
> are explicitly meant to be set by the /author/ of a message, and thus
> shouldn't be set by list managers.
> 
This would be a direct violation of the specification for
Mail-Followup-To:

	Should my mailing list manager set up Mail-Followup-To?

	No. This would prevent non-subscribers from receiving copies of
	messages. It would fragment cross-posted discussions, sending
	some followups to your list alone while other followups are sent
	to both lists. You should leave Mail-Followup-To control in the
	hands of the original author.

	 -- http://cr.yp.to/proto/replyto.html

Scott
-- 
Scott James Remnant
scott at ubuntu.com
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 191 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/attachments/20060912/4bdff421/attachment.pgp