From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/6624 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Sudish Joseph Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: [Gnus 5.2.14] message-make-sender Date: 10 Jun 1996 20:40:10 -0400 Sender: sj@atreides.erehwon.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035147052 4215 80.91.224.250 (20 Oct 2002 20:50:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 20:50:52 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: ding-request@ifi.uio.no Original-Received: from ifi.uio.no (ifi.uio.no [129.240.64.2]) by deanna.miranova.com (8.7.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id RAA28188 for ; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 17:55:55 -0700 Original-Received: from atreides.erehwon.org (sj@atl-ga23-21.ix.netcom.com [205.186.178.149]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 11 Jun 1996 02:36:58 +0200 Original-Received: (from sj@localhost) by atreides.erehwon.org (8.7.5/8.6.9) id UAA00344; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 20:40:10 -0400 Original-To: ding@ifi.uio.no In-Reply-To: Richard Pieri's message of 10 Jun 1996 10:14:23 -0400 Original-Lines: 67 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.2.12/Emacs 19.31 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:6624 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:6624 Richard Pieri writes: > authentic = "From" ":" mailbox ; Single author > / ( "Sender" ":" mailbox ; Actual submittor > "From" ":" 1#mailbox) ; Multiple authors > ; or not sender > > The Sender mailbox specification includes a word sequence > which must correspond to a specific agent (i.e., a human user > or a computer program) rather than a standard address. This The "standard address" referred to here is one set by a user (for the From: header, for instance); it does not mean just "valid RFC822 address" in this context--though all standard adresses must be valid RFC822 addresses, of course. :) > expected to be a computer system term, and not (for example) a > generalized person reference which can be used outside the > network text message context. A "generalized person reference" here is an intended-for-humans address or name. > [In fact, not only does Sender: not need to contain a valid Internet > mail address, it generally should not contain one. --Rat] This is incorrect. If you look at the ABNF above, you'll note that both "from" and "sender" require the use of a "mailbox" (sure, sender is optional, but if present it MUST have a "mailbox"). "mailbox" => "addr-spec" => "domain" (with other stuff, of course). > aj> It is used when mailbox of From field is not senders real address or > aj> it contains multiple mailboxes. This is correct. It tries to indicate the originator in ambiguous situations like the above. > No, that is the Reply-To: header. No, the reply-to: address is a user-settable address, just as from: is (both are "standard address"es in the context of the first quoted paragraph). Sender is there for one and only one reason: a lame, half-hearted attempt at authentication; which -can- be very useful, see below. To further clarify the important distinction between from: and sender:, it's worth noting that the DRUMS WG (currently updating / clarifying 821 and 822 (*)) seriously considered strongly recommending replacing the current use of reply-to with the from header. This was inspired by the complete chaos that prevails w.r.t. mailing lists that hijack reply-to for their own uses (some do, some don't). I.e., the intent was to abandon reply-to and make people use the from header to indicate where replies should go (every mailer I've seen does this properly: it selects from as the default place to send replies). This is in sharp contrast to using it to indicate where it originated. In such a context, sender: would be very useful. -Sudish (*): They seemed to be in agreement about throwing the (useless) definition of references: in mail and replacing it with a definition closer to that of 1023. The funny thing about that mailing list was that I've -never- seen another list where so few messages had references headers. Even my procmail setup, where I munge one from in-reply-to if possible, was mostly useless. I guess when you've been using mail as long as most of those people have been, it's difficult to switch to a newer reader. :-)