Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: Prompting users for "Cc:" in Mail after message composed is confusing
Message-ID: <4450@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 19 Nov 90 18:30:56 GMT
References: <4383@auspex.auspex.com> <1577@peritek.UUCP>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 42

>Of course, without relying on askcc, I could do a ~h or a ~c, but I
>shouldn't have to.

I don't particularly care if I have to, and I usually construct the
entire header first, so the way "askcc" works now isn't a win to me
(heck, I don't even turn it on, since I rarely Cc: messages anyway).

That's why one of my suggestions was that options to do it *either* way
be provided, as not *everybody* prefers it the way you do (and no, I'm
not the only one who doesn't, either).

>I have never seen mail going to the postmaster's mailbox.

Well, I have.  Happens all the time here.

>Shouldn't an unknown destination be trapped by the mailer and response
>be sent back to the mail user

Yes, it is, but a copy of the *headers* is also bounced to the
postmaster.

>Root doesn't, or is this some feature of 4.3 TAHOE?).

We're not running 4.3-tahoe, we're running SunOS 4.x, but the behavior
of Berkmail in question is common to a lot of systems (including
S5R2, from whose "mailx" SunOS 3.0 and later's Berkmail is derived, and
also including various flavors of BSD).

In addition, sending a copy of the headers of bounced mail back to
"postmaster" (which happens to be aliased to "root" here) is in most if
not all versions of "sendmail"; note the "P" option in "sendmail.cf", as
in the

	OPPostmaster

line in some "sendmail.cf" files (including ours).

And bouncing a copy back to the user just because they were confused by
"Cc:" is as much of a problem - if not more of a problem - than noting
the bounce to the postmaster, as the user may then think the mail didn't
get to anybody and send it again (the bounced mail that finally provoked
my posting was retried about three times by the user).