Re: Who sets Sender:?

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

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> wrote:
> * prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc)  on Tue, 21 May 2002
> | It might also help if you quoted the part of RFC 2822 that makes you
> | think this is relevant.
>
> Because a mailbox is not necessarilly used by the person who uses the
> account.  It could be the vacation program invoked by the user's .forward
> file.
>
> Because a mailbox is not necessarilly a single person.  A mailbox may be
> shared by several people.
>
> Because a mailbox may not be a person at all.  It could be a program like
> Mailman sending out its monthly reminders to list subscribers.

I don't see how any of this is relevant.  I also don't see any quotes
from RFC 2822.  Do you think there are any specific parts of RFC 2822
that support your position?

> If RFC 2822 is interpreted such that a single user has a single identity
> with many mailboxes, then you need to start making exceptions for special
> cases and conditionalizing others.

Such as?

> | That fact that you can be indicated by two distinct mailboxes doesn't
> | change the fact that you can also be indicated by a single mailbox.
>
> If that statement were true, then by strictest reading of RFC 2822, mail
> that I send as samurairat@spamcop.net from ratinox@ccs.neu.edu should never
> have a Sender header.

Right.

> This is wrong.

I don't see why.  Anyone who's interested in the route the message was
sent by can look at the Received fields.

> Sender -is- unimportant for mail.  My opinion is that Sender should
> never be generated automatically for mail.

Agreed.

> | > Also, be aware that the Sender header must never be used for anything but
> | > human consumption.
>
> | What does this mean, exactly?  If I want to reply to a message and
> | send the response to the Sender address, should my MUA stop me?  Or
> | just not provide any easy way to do this?  Or just not make it the
> | default reply address?
>
> It means exactly that.

Exactly *which*?  Those are mutually exclusive, or were meant to be.
Should my MUA stop me from sending a response to the Sender address?
If it does not stop me, should it provide no easy way to do this?  If
it provides an easy way to do this, should it merely not use Sender by
default?

> The default reply address is the From field.  The default reply address can
> be changed by the originator by setting a Reply-To header.  Your MUA is
> very broken if it uses the Sender address over From or Reply-To.

I don't think any of that is in dispute.


paul