[OpenISO] RFC 2369 ( was Re: [Fwd: Re: [Fwd: Re:.. ]] )

[Norbert Bollow]

(Catching up on some email)

Henrik Sundberg <storangen at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2007/9/27, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>:
> > Roman Fordinal <fordinal at webcom.sk> wrote:
> >
> > > Please anyone setup mailman to default reply adress as
> > > discuss at openiso.org. lot of messages is sended directly.
> >
> > The problem here is not with the configuration of this mailing list,
> > which correctly implements the appropriate internet standard
> > (RFC 2369), but with email programs which are broken in that they
> > don't react appropriately to the presence of the List-Post: header.
> 
> >From the RFC:
> 
> 3.4. List-Post
> 
>    The List-Post field describes the method for posting to the list.
>    This is typically the address of the list, but MAY be a moderator, or
>    potentially some other form of submission. For the special case of a
>    list that does not allow posting (e.g., an announcements list), the
>    List-Post field may contain the special value "NO".
> 
>    Examples:
> 
>      List-Post: <mailto:list at host.com>
>      List-Post: <mailto:moderator at host.com> (Postings are Moderated)
>      List-Post: <mailto:moderator at host.com?subject=list%20posting>
>      List-Post: NO (posting not allowed on this list)
> 
> =========
> How is this related to the mail clients? It seems to be about sending
> to the list, not from.
> Isn't it Reply-To that should be used by the list software?

The Reply-To: header was never been intended in the email standards
as a means of supplying an email address that email clients should
use for addressing a reply to the list.

It is true that many mailing lists are configured to set / clobber
that header anyway (so-called Reply-to munging).  This creates a
number of problems.

Fortunately, an internet standard has been developed which provides
an appropriate technical solution to these problems, RFC 2369.

In my opinion, RFC 2369 has been published as a standards-track RFC
long enough ago that Reply-to munging is now not merely a dubious
practice but an outright standards violation.

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                      http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG    http://SIUG.ch
Working on establishing a non-corrupt and
truly /open/ international standards organization  http://OpenISO.org