Path: utzoo!utstat!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Pnews causes inews to reject .signatures
Message-ID: <2126@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 12 Feb 90 18:33:59 GMT
References: <4331@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <FL8!2=@rpi.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 24

In article <FL8!2=@rpi.edu> tale@cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes:

| There are several fixes and this is one of the worst.  Look at the
| article you posted.  The From: line and Reply-To: line are exactly the
| same.  Now, since From: is a required header line and Reply-To: is not
| why not just save everyone the bytes and keep the Reply-To: line out
| all together?

  Sorry, the From: and Reply-To: lines are not always the same for
several reasons. A user may elect to have mail go to a personal machine,
for instance, and many mail systems feel free to rewrite the From: line
but leave the Reply-To: alone.

  This becomes even more true when the From: field becomes a series of
bang addresses ending in an @node notation. This may or may not be
useful, and the path may not be reversable. Reply-TO: has the function
of describing the address to be used for returning communications, and
it is not synonymous with From:.

  Saving bytes is a nice thing, but having reliable communications is
another, more difficult, problem.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me