Re: Who sets Sender:?

[prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc)]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> wrote:
> If ratinox@peorth.gweep.net is me and the vacation program is not
> me, then how should the headers be set up?

The vacation program is you, in the sense that you are ultimately
responsible for the messages it sends, and that *it does not make
sense to send a message specifically to the vacation program, as
distinct from you*.  IOW, you are the only identity involved, because
the vacation program has no identity of its own.  I wouldn't bother
with a Sender in this case.  I also wouldn't object to its presence if
you set up your vacation program to supply a Sender, but I do object
to the idea that this is required by RFC 2822.  Are you making that
claim?

> Such as if for some whacked reason you let me borrow prj@po.cwru.edu.
> Which of us is that mailbox, really?

Too vague to say.  I think it would depend on the technical details of
the reason or of the borrowing.

> What it ammounts to is this: if an individual has many identities then all
> mail is treated identically, but if an individual has one identity then
> many messages need to be treated differently depending on circumstances.

You provide an easy answer for "what constitutes an identity?"; I do
not, because I do not see any basis for that answer in RFC 2822.  I'm
not arguing whether your approach is simple, only whether it is
supported by RFC 2822.

> Sender is not about message routing.  It is about who did what.  Sender is
> a social construct, similar to a secretary's mark at the end of typed
> message noting who did the typing.

But in your example of specifying one of your addresses in From and
another in Sender depending on where you happen to be sending from,
Sender provides no information not already available in Received - it
indicates not who did what, but where you did it from.  So why bother?


paul