Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ll-xn!cullvax!news
From: news@cullvax.UUCP (Mail and USENET News System maintenance account)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Trouble with From: lines
Message-ID: <621@cullvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Dec-86 14:40:57 EST
Article-I.D.: cullvax.621
Posted: Wed Dec  3 14:40:57 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Dec-86 22:17:36 EST
Organization: Cullinet Software, Inc., Westwood, MA
Lines: 19

We are a UUCP site that is fed by an ARPA site.  Incoming ARPA
messages used to come to us with headers saying things like

	From: arpa-feed!user@arpa.site

which worked fine--one could reply to it, etc.  Recently this has
changed (the "arpa-feed!" part isn't added), so return addresses have
to be composed manually.  I complained to the postmaster that this
makes the From: lines unusable for sending replies.  His reply was to
quote from RFC 976 that any transformation from a valid domain address
was forbidden, even if the address that was sent on was unusable to
the recipient.  He suggested upgrading our mail software.

This strikes me as quite unreasonable.  As far as I can see, the only
genuine need in address manipulations is that any address sent to a
machine must be usable by that machine.  It used to work and now it
doesn't.  Am I being unreasonable?

Dale