Re: Sender header?

["Bjørn Mork" <bmork@dod.no>]

prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:
> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
> > On 25 May 2001, Paul Jarc wrote:
> >
> >> According to RFC 1036, Sender is for news more or less what Rat says
> >> it should be for mail - it's used for tracking down where a message
> >> entered the network.
> > 
> > RFC 1036 has this example:
> 
> Yes, but it also has this one:
> # If a gateway program enters a mail message into the network at host
> # unix.SRI.COM, the lines might read:
> #
> #           From: John.Doe@A.CS.CMU.EDU
> #           Sender: network@unix.SRI.COM
> 
> I don't think it's suggesting that network@unix.sri.com issupposed to
> be a valid email address.

RFC 1036 is confusing and unclear at best. It's better to look forward
and see what's proposed in
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-usefor-article-04.txt :

   A "sender" is the person or software (usually, but not always, the
   same as the poster) responsible for the operation of the posting
   agent or, which amounts to the same thing, for passing the article to
   the injecting agent. The sender is analogous to [MESSFOR]'s sender.

 [..]

 6.2.  Sender

   The Sender header specifies the mailbox of the entity which actually
   sent this article, if that entity is different from that given in the
   From header or if more than one address appears in the From header.
   This header SHOULD NOT appear in an article unless the sender is
   different from the author. This header is appropriate for use by
   automatic article posters. The content syntax makes use of syntax
   defined in [MESSFOR].

      Sender-content      = mailbox

([MESSFOR] was P. Resnick, "Internet Message Format Standard", 
draft-ietf-drums-msg-fmt-07.txt, March 1998, which is now published as
RFC 2822)

I.e. they propose changing the definition of the sender field in news
to mean the same as in mail. Would make things easier IMHO.


Bjørn