On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:30:51 +0100 Boyle Owen <Owen.Boyle@???> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David Woodhouse [mailto:dwmw2@infradead.org]
> >
> > Please read http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html
> A wonderfully cogent argument. Although I half-expected it to conclude
> "..and so you see, heavier-than-air flying machines are quite
> impossible." My point is, I don't think the data confirms the
> hypothesis. I subscribe to several other lists which are just as busy as
> Exim and really don't think I've *ever* come across a case of anyone
> replying to the list when they meant to reply to the individual. It's a
> dire warning about a non-problem.
please stop this.
i have managed electronic mailing lists o the internet since
roughly 1985.
in terms of user preference, i have generally found the subscriber
community evenly divided over the "correct" setting of reply to. as
an administrator, i have found setting reply-to to the list address to
be a potentially deadly error[1]. given the serious negatives
associated with setting reply-to to point to the list, this decision is
really a no brainer, and the exim-user list setting is correct as is
and should not be changed.
richard
[1] back in the bad old days, there were certain mailers that would
ignore the setting of MAIL FROM: in the smtp envelope and send
replies to something that they dug out of the headers, which was
often reply-to. the most notorious of these was the now defunct
MSMail program, but there were others. i have had to clean up
mail loops that started after close of business on a friday afternoon,
it's not a lot of fun, and is the reason why i changed reply-to on
my lists sometime during the previous century.
if you had asked me a couple of months back, i might have said
that it didn't seem to be much of a problem any more. however,
recently i saw evidence that there are still such broken mailers
lurking -- the danger isn't over yet. it probably never will be as
long as there are morons writing and deploying MTAs.
--
Richard Welty rwelty@???
Averill Park Networking 518-573-7592
Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
