Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!gatech!emory!dtscp1!scott
From: scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: mail headers
Message-ID: <636@dtscp1.UUCP>
Date: 14 Apr 89 19:25:31 GMT
References: <248.244422A4@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us>
Reply-To: scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman)
Organization: Digital Transmission Systems (a subsidiary of DCA), Duluth, GA
Lines: 43

In article <248.244422A4@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us> mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) writes:
>In article <627@dtscp1.UUCP>, scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) writes:
>
> >In article <11470@s.ms.uky.edu> david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of 
> >the vertebrae) writes:
> >>But *do* *not* suggest that we take away the Received: headers!
> >
> >Why?  Someone please explain to me what purpose do they serve besides making
> >it more difficult to get to the real mail at the end.  I am more interested
> >in the message not what software, version number, or even system the note
> >passed through to get here.
>
>The Received: headers come in VERY handy when your mail hasn't gotten from
>point A to point B, and you'd like to know why.  They're often useful
>in discovering sites that do "active" rerouting (and thus enabling you
>to route around them if it's a problem).

Then why all the verbosity?  As I recall from my old version 7 days,
what happened to the "From" lines as post marks?  It seems that this
would work just the same without creating more "garbage" to unreliably
transmit.  Also, I worry more about someone's mailer munging the contents
of my note by going in and altering things than I do mail not getting
to where I want it!

>Yes, they're primarily a debugging aid, and they're not needed in most
>cases.  But in those few cases where they're necessary, it's nice to
>have them.  You might try using a mailreader that lets you configure
>which header lines you want to see.

Up until now, /bin/mail has been fine to use (sort of).  It goes into
the mailbox, and displays the mail on the screen, one at a time, and
lets me do things with it (save, forward, reply, etc.).  NOW, because
"someone" decided that my mail has to be delivered with the finger
prints of every system it touches, I have to go out and get software
loaded with "creeping featurisms" just to read the darned mail without
all the garbage!

What ever happened to the original Unix idea that small and simple
is elegant?  I think we should reconsider email in that light!

-- 
scott barman
{gatech, emory}!dtscp1!scott