Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!bbn!husc6!purdue!decwrl!vixie
From: vixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul A Vixie)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: "From:" vs. "From_"
Message-ID: 
Date: 5 Dec 88 10:56:19 GMT
References:  <1297@ucsd.EDU>
Sender: news@decwrl.dec.com
Organization: DEC Western Research Lab
Lines: 30
In-reply-to: brian@ucsd.EDU's message of 4 Dec 88 18:44:45 GMT

I think we will end up agreeing to disagree.  As I understand pacbell's
mailer, it is not quite "standard uucp-world-only".  They run smail.  Smail
does the "right" thing according to RFC976, which is: don't mess around
with From: lines unless you are acting as a gateway.

Since the "From_" line has the information in it, it makes a lot of sense
to leave the "From:" line in its original form, hoping that it was modified
by the gateway into "your" domain such that if you can get it back to that
gateway, the gateway can get it back to the sender on the "other side".

Of course, this doesn't mention or deal with "Cc:" or "Reply-To:", but let's
not muddy the waters all at once.

I can see the reasoning behind your "From:" modification strategy, and I could
even argue in favor of it with very little provocation.  One thing to keep in
mind when thinking about heterogeneous mail networks is that although there
are many "wrong" ways to do something, there is no single "right" way.

My "right" way is to do for the most part what the RFCs can be read as
suggesting, and hoping that any inconvenience I cause by doing so will
cause either greater compliance to existing RFCs or new RFCs.  Getting
my own mail delivered takes precedence over this, of course :-) -- meaning
that if breaking an RFC is the _only_ way to get mail to stop bouncing,
I grit my teeth and pull out the hacksaw.  I prefer to yell at the admins
of offensive sites, though, and maximizing my compliance with RFCs tends
to strengthen my position when I have to do that.
--
Paul Vixie
Work:    vixie@decwrl.dec.com    decwrl!vixie    +1 415 853 6600
Play:    paul@vixie.sf.ca.us     vixie!paul      +1 415 864 7013