ken wrote:
Basil Chupin wrote:
ken wrote:
Patrick Shanahan wrote:
.... add the header "Reply-To: opensuse@opensuse.org" to all opensuse list mail. When you decide to post an answer or comment to an opensuse posting, "reply" will select opensuse@opensuse.org address.
[pruned]
I am not into this thing anymore (after years of arguments in the Fidonet world back in late 80's early 90's) about RFCs, but just on the above point.
I can relate. I've been doing email lists since 1981 and they've always functioned in the way you describe below (what I've termed alternately the intelligent/sensible method). Those in the opposing ("correct") camp draw on one sentence in RFC 2822 which suggests that no one should change the contents of the author's Reply-To field, therefore the mailing list software should leave it alone and the default Reply-To is always the poster instead of the list.
It seems to me that the recipient of an email *can* alter the Reply-To field of an incoming email. Indeed, I can take an email I receive and send or not send my reply to it to anyone I please. As the recipient of the email, I can even delete the email if that's what I want to do. So I don't see how that one sentence in RFC 2822 applies to any recipient of any email.
<Groan> You are doing it, aren't you? You are drawing me into something I don't want to touch and haven't touched since early 90's :-) . But, OK, you've done it :-) . Have to disagree with you. Let's not touch on the subject of e-mail because there are 2 types of e-mail: the private ones and the ones which end up here- in a public forum but distributed in e-mail form. With respect of *private* e-mail you have no right to distribute it to anyone else UNLESS you obtain the permission of the sender. Re the e-mails which end up here, while the privacy thing is irrelevant -- but CROSS-POSTING would be - you do not have the right to alter the contents et al. because you are not the author/owner of the e-mail. YOur mail should be transmitted in its original form and without any alterations.
Now isn't the list server the recipient of my (and all subscribers') emails? After all, that's where I'm (and all subscribers are) sending email. So as the recipient of my and others' email, just as I am allowed to change the Reply-To field, I believe the list server is likewise allowed to alter the Reply-To field... and _should_ in a sensible way, in a way which makes it a many-to-many technology by default, i.e., without need of a separate, "correct" email client or cludges or technical workarounds on the client side, a way which allows even Windows users to participate in this list.
This doesn't mean that a list server is permitted to change anything else in subscribers' emails, not the body or the "Sender" or "From" or "Date" fields. Just the Reply-To. Therefore, in the rare instance when I want to reply only to the author of an email sent to the list, then I can do that also.
Now, having said what I said above, can you point out to me ANY e-mail message which has come to this forum that has a REPLY-TO field in it? I can't see one in any of the messages I have looked at. To me that means that the author/sender did *not* have this field in his/her original message and therefore *this* (SuSE) server can add this field to all the e-mails which arrive in this forum. End of story :-) . Cheers. -- This computer is environment-friendly and is running on OpenSuSE 10.1