Re: Your setting Return-Path to YOU in your cygwin@cygwin postings

[Dave Korn <dave.korn.cygwin@googlemail.com>]

Owen Rees wrote:
> --On Wednesday, March 04, 2009 16:39:41 +0000 Dave Korn wrote:
> 
>>   Yes, you're right.  Looking at the history, it's never made it to the
>> status of an STD, but there was an IETF draft proposal (which is actually
>> one stage more advanced than an RFC):
>>
>> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/98dec/I-D/draft-ietf-drums-mail-followup-
>> to-00.txt

> To quote RFC2026:
> 
> 2.2  Internet-Drafts

> That, and the rest of RFC2026 makes it clear that a "internet draft" has
> lower status than an RFC - it is typically a proposal that may
> eventually turn into an RFC. 

  Oh, I remembered the order of progression wrong, I thought it was
RFC->draft->STD.

> On the subject of expiry:
> 
> draft-ietf-drums-mail-followup-to-00.txt
> Expires: May 1998
> 
> It has not been followed up for over 10 years so I think that indicates
> the status of the proposal as far as the IETF process is concerned.

  True, but that's not the whole story; the IETF standards process has always
been a lagged and idealised version of reality.  Still, I will reword my
earlier paragraph:

>   Note also how all those paths have a Mail-Followup-To header pointing
> at the list.  Any mailer that does not respect that when you hit Reply
> does not comply with common internet practice, but if it resorts to using
> the Return-Path header, it is completely incorrect.  The Return-Path is
> for automated error messages *only*, not replies of any sort.

    cheers,
      DaveK