Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!brl-adm!adm!MRC@PANDA.PANDA.COM
From: MRC@PANDA.PANDA.COM (Mark Crispin)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re:  A plea for sanity
Message-ID: <11803@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: 14 Feb 88 08:32:07 GMT
Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 20

Stuart -

     You completely misunderstand the issue.  SMTP (RFC 821) defines an
address that mailer error reports (as distinguished from replies) are
sent to.  The BITNET mailers in question are using the reply address,
ignoring the errors address, to send errors reports to.

     The BITNET mailers which do this are broken.

     Errors-To: is completely unnecessary if SMTP is correctly implemented.
If you are using a non-SMTP transport, it should possess this functionality
OR it should do whatever equivalent exists in that transport to pass on that
address.

-- Mark --

PS: I am the implementor of one of the major electronic mail packages in
    use on the Internet, and have been for 9 years.  I know what I'm
    talking about.
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