Date: Mon, 15 May 95 09:31 PDT
From: jdp AT polstra DOT com (John Polstra)
To: djgpp AT polstra DOT com
Subject: Re: Header re-writing

In <199505130912 DOT SAA26490 AT shako DOT sk DOT tsukuba DOT ac DOT jp>, Stephen Turnbull
<turnbull AT shako DOT sk DOT tsukuba DOT ac DOT jp> writes:

> It is *not* legal to rewrite the headers in the fashion suggested.
> According to RFC822, the Reply-To: header is for the use of the *sender*,
> to redirect replies in case she is using a different account, is moving,
> is having mail problems, or any of a thousand other possibilities.

I think you are misinterpreting the scope of applicability of RFC 822.
RFC 822 specifies what *mail delivery subsystems* may and may not do.
But a reflector such as djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu is *not* a mail
delivery subsystem.

If I mail something to the DJGPP list, RFC 822 governs what is allowed
to happen to my mail between the time I type it in and the time it
arrives at the DJGPP reflector.  But it does not in any way govern what
the reflector is allowed to do to the message before sending it back out
again to all the members of the list.  The reflector is perfectly within
its rights to rewrite headers, consolidate multiple messages into a
single digest, or even discard messages as it sees fit.  And, in fact,
most mail reflectors do all of those things.

As far as RFC 822 is concerned, the originator of the message is the
DJGPP reflector, not the individual whose mail to djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
happened to provoke the reflector into sending something out to a bunch
of people.

I don't currently have an opinion as to whether the DJGPP reflector
should rewrite the Reply-To header.  But RFC 822 conformance is not an
issue.

   John Polstra                                       jdp AT polstra DOT com
   John D. Polstra & Co., Inc.                Seattle, Washington USA
   "Self-knowledge is always bad news."                 -- John Barth